Richard Whiteley not Whitley . Assuming you were referring to the former journalist and presenter of countdown .

Pedantic

The Aussie salary cap means there won't be anymore stars or even decent players coming just players who are injury prone or have a lot of baggage the best you can hope for is an unknown that turns out to be a gem

and if any Sl side finds a gem, they will go straight back to NRL as soon as they can

Bang on Francis.

Back in those days of Galea, Vella, Newton etc, the gap between the SL & NRL cap was way smaller than it is now, making it much easier to sign players. Even looking at the crop FC brought over for 2016 (Fonua, Pritchard, Manu & Tuimavave), it'd be impossible to get that same value for money now. In some cases, players can earn more playing 2nd tier in Aus than they can in SL.

Clubs now have to be much more savvy in their recruitment & retention, or throw money around in transfer fees. I think the younger players Rovers have recruited have been decent, like Mulhern, Minns, Oakes, Atkin etc, mixed in with a couple of promising academy products.

The issue is the average Joe contingent like Lee, Tickle, Jewitt, Clarkson, Scruton etc, which were necessary to enable Rovers to get back up and then to stay up. The OP is absolutely ridiculous in their expectations as it's quite clear Rovers are trying to build something much more longer term.

You should have stuck to ‘the OP is absolutely ridiculous’.

Jesus, some modicum of sense from an FC fan. I need to sit down.

Fair point.

I like their assumption that players are that easy and free to get rid of whilst under contract, like it's all one big fantasy league game.

Are you French?

there's quite a few of us around, just a couple that troll incessently, vice versa on the FC board.