What is preventing this?

I cannot recall hardly any SL players moving from one Top SL club to another in the last decade.

By Top SL clubs, I mean player movements between Leeds, Wigan and St Helens throughout the last decade, and including Bradford and then Warrington (who replaced them).

Peacock from Bradford to Leeds in 2005 is the last one I can recall. Mickey Higham from St Helens to Wigan around the same time. Martin Gleeson's move from Warrington to Wigan in 2009 perhaps, though Warrington weren't Top SL club material at that stage.

Yet in comparison, player movements between the rest of the WBSLR clubs is a regular occurrence as a constant stream of players flit from one WBSLR club to another with ease.

I suspect you know the answer to this, which is the same answer to why players don't tend to move between the top 4 clubs in football, or between Real Madrid and Barcelona - not wanting to give up your best players to rivals giving them a direct competitive advantage. Similarly, those clubs on the same level will be unwilling to take on players from your club that you consider expendable, because if they're not good enough for one club they're not good enough for another (occasional exceptions like Ben Cross actually prove the rule).

Wigan players seem to head to RU or NRL. Saints only real quality in Eastmond and Graham went similar. Leeds managed to keep their squad together until retirements hit (Buderus and Eastwood returned back to NRL) and Warrington had players through to retirement too like Briers, Morley, Hodgson.

So a number of reasons with RU/NRL being one, I also think clubs (Leeds in particular) have become better at keeping squads together compared to 10 years ago. The 2004 GF back line mostly went to pastures new for more money within a couple of seasons (Mathers, Calderwood, Walker, Bai) whereas the 2012 GF back line is still intact (Hardaker, Hall, Watkins) or improved (Briscoe over BJB and addition of Moon)

the obvious answer is the salary cap has effectively killed the market for top players, the restrictions on spending mean the opportunity cost of spending a significant amount more on a player than your rivals is just too high.

it is a consequence of a cap that the top is compressed and that is what we are seeing, creating a limited differential in salaries at the top, removing the main driver of that market.

Did Petr Cech, Danny Welbeck, Robin Van Persie, Juan Mata, Raheem Sterling, Samir Nasri, Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy, James Milner and Kolo Toure tell you to say that?

The lack of player movement at Top SL clubs in particular is one reason among many why the sport has little to no media profile. There's simply nothing newsworthy taking place. Nothing to talk about. All the players at the Top SL clubs remain stuck in a salary-capped comfort zone of unchallenged mediocrity where they stay put, or retire to play for a WBSLR club (or several in quick succession) once their form starts to fade and/or they can no longer command a first team spot.

The sport has little media profile for a number of reasons. The lack of player movements between top clubs is a only a small factor in that and if you are discussing the poor media profile it's hardly worth mentioning.

Now this is more pertinent.

Puts a whole new perspective on the notion of assumed player loyalty to one SL club.

However, wasn't it Sinfield who said... [i"Every player in our squad could probably earn more money with another club. But they prefer to sacrifice a few extra quid in their back pocket to share special memories. And playing at a place like Old Trafford on a night like this makes it all worthwhile"[/i.

I don't believe a stagnant market for players at the top end of SL is healthy for the game. In fact, I'd argue that it is as tragic as it is tedious.

You might wish to check out the amount of media attention surrounding other sports in regard to player transfers (along with speculation about player transfers) before dismissing it all as a small factor. In fact soccer goes out of its way to promote such activity with several "deadline day" orgasms during a season.

What have we got?

Jordan Tansey signs (on loan) to his umpteenth WBSLR club!

i think Sinfield explains it in that quote. Yeah, there are players who could earn a few extra quid, but thats all they would earn, a couple of extra quid. Amounts that would probably be made back with win bonuses and prize money.

And lets not pretend this is a bug in the system, its a feature deliberately built in and codified through long service and development exemptions and now the marquee allowance costing less for a developed player than a new one

I think you are deluded if you think a few top players moving between saints wigan and leeds would have a big impact on media attention. Unless you think a 1 paragraph article hidden away on the BBC website is good. Making the comparison with football is laughable, twitter entries from top players generate media attention in football. FRootball is big business, anything related to it will generate big media attention, it doesn't mean a few poxy transfer for RL will. Listen, England could win the world cup in australia, and when the new super league season there would still be the usual little to no media coverage.

a 1 paragraph article is better than nothing.

You complain there is little to no media coverage, what really do we give the media to cover?

I agree with the quote. Sinfield nails it IMO. That quote has been misinterpreted by others as supreme loyalty to club and team mates over money, particularly in the case of Leeds. That's not quite the whole story. It's got just as much to do with the lack of opportunity for top players to increase their salary at another SL club.

And yes, it is all a fix. A loaded dice, so to speak.