More heads in the sand. Please listen: Rugby League is not as popular in this country as it is in Australia, so it is entirely logical that they have a perceived financial advantage. Attempting to spend the same money as them when the sport does not generate nearly the same level of revenue from TV contracts and commercial sponsorship deals is tantamount to self destruction.

The challenge for the game is to INCREASE REVENUES, if the game is richer, and the clubs find themselves with more money burning holes in their pockets, then the logical outcome is that they will all vote as one to increase the salary cap level.

I'm really starting to wonder about the average IQ levels on rlfans these days considering people don't seem to "get it". Maybe it's the credit card culture in this country. "Oh I can't afford to buy that with my wages, oh I'll just get a CC so I can have it now".

Also, the complaints re: the salary cap being there to "stop the good clubs getting better" - you seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that Aus operate under a salary cap as well, and Melbourne, having been found to have flouted it, were dealt with FAR MORE SEVERELY than the RFL would ever DARE treat a club here for breaching regulations. They take the salary cap more seriously than we do!

What's that, having better players?

Having so many world class players in one team yes .

A SL club couldn't get Gasnier,Cooper and boyd in there team..thats not including the morris's and weyman's and the rest.

Yep, that's right, we couldn't. and we shouldn't. We should be producing our own.

Thankfully (and this is making me sick in my mouth a bit to say this), at least Wigan are going the right way with producing quality juniors. Tomkins brothers especially.

Interesting that St Helens assistant coach is on sky sports news blaming the salary cap for RL loosing players to RU.

FWIW i am in favour of the salary cap but in its origional guise. Limiting it to a percentage of turnover prevents one or two money men throwing money at certain clubs 'a la' abramovic but creates an insentive to and rewards any individual club who increase their turnover.

I don't think complete hogwash about being restricted to the spending levels of smaller clubs. By this I mean some clubs will always vote against an increase in the cap because they can't afford it and seemingly never will be able to. They are in the majority so the cap does not get raised.

Now on the face of it clubs who can't afford a rise voting against sounds reasonable but what is seemingly not happening is they don't seem to be increasng revenue so they too [icould[/i vote for an increase in the cap. So IMO when people complain we have a salary cap set at a level that panders to the smaller clubs the root of this complaint is these clubs do not seem capable of ever generating increased revenue so we will always be stuck at this level of cap.

It seems to me the only way around this is to insist clubs have a certain level of turnover (or proper business plans to get there for new franchisees) to get or retain a franchise. It should be a goal of all clubs to increase revenue and while that may be the case at some point certain clubs will hit a ceiling and just won't be able to increase it any more. They need to stand aside for clubs that can or could do so or I can't see how the cap will ever be raised.

Maybe there aren't enough possible "replacement" clubs to do this and if so we ought to stop kidding ourselves RL can remain a pro sport.

My fear exactly.

I'm not convinced the bigger clubs can even sustainably afford higher levels of wages though Dave, not without injections of cash from board members and benefactors.

For example, I found an article this morning on the liverpooldailypost website stating that Warrington's returned accounts to companies house for 2009 showed that, despite winning silverware for the first time in 35 years, and the merchandise and ticket sales that go along with that, the club made a profit of only £28k. You can read it rlhererl

Wigan may be in a more prosperous position than Warrington financially, certainly with the SL title in the bag (I'm guessing that the SL title offers more prize money than the CC), but I would be staggered if it were to be by much. Also, relying on prize money coming in to increase your revenue allowing you to spend more on players is a recipe for future operating loss as soon as you don't have as successful a season as would be relied upon.

"The Warrington coach Tony Smith has called for an increase in the salary cap for Super League clubs"

Source Sky Sports Rugby League text page.

Made all the more interesting an opinion by the article I've just linked to. I'm all for increasing the level of the salary cap. But I'm also not an idiot and realise the sport and individual clubs is/are not as rich as some believe.

Course he has. He's got Simon Moran bankrolling his club

Clubs should only be allowed to spend what they can afford to.
That's why I believe the RFL/SL should dump the SC and replace it with a "break even rule". Bust the BER and you get points deducted.
The SC hasn't stopped clubs going broke and never will. We need something that will stop going bust.

A number of clubs should have an increase in revenue as they go into new stadiums. New stads transform a club's revenue turnover.

Whether we keep the SC or go for something better we will not stop our players going to Union as the money offered is so way in excess of any amount SL clubs can pay. We have to deal with it by other means.