It's been voted through.

So, who should the Rhinos be after? Cronk? Widdop? Eastmond? Sam Burgess? Who of these would come? Or should we prepare to be underwhelmed...

Knowing GH I'd suggest the latter

It'll probably be used to take the highest earner currently at the club out of the salary cap calculation, which will free up cap space to use "rewarding and retaining our outstanding young players".

I think we might be pleasantly surprised

So we're under the cap already. Plus JP's, Kev's & Lealuai's salary. Plus a marquee salary exempt. As tight as GH has been over the years I really cannot see Leeds not signing a huge name! Sign a big name plus a couple of really solid players or simply be left behind next season.

Half back with good goal kicking and field kicking skills is the most important player this club needs right now. Then an extremely good leader of players.

We've also let Kirke & Bailey go in the off season meaning we have/will have lost 4 senior props. (Cuthbertson was already added to the 2015 squad before the departures of Kirke & Bailey were 'announced' at least)

Surely GH won't just fob us off with trying to claim with Mullalley coming in, Baldwinson coming back from Fev and Yates and Mulhern with another years' experience that our pack options are fine for 2016???

Agreed. Widdop fits the bill but has said he's happy at St George's?

I think the pack is the priority, but I doubt GH would use it to sign a prop.

To be honest i don't like this concept...smacks of a return to the bad old days of "star" signings like Gallagher and all that wonderful team spirit that engenders. The so called marquee player would be placed in a near impossible position of being the expected weekly world beater while at the time not causing any resentment within the ranks.

The NRL props we've linked with (Galloway/Shinllington) are decent but not "marquee" players and we could sign them under the existing cap. I think Gallen has signed for another year at Cronulla? Don't see any marquee props on the market unless Sam B turns.

The marquee signing. Like Andrew Johns and Allan Langer before him at Warrington?

Yeah, that is how you win trophies, bring in an outsider on way more money than the rest of his team mates.

Stay clear GH, stay clear.

You might want to read up on the actual rule. Because that is not what this change is at all.

Edited following sight of the official RFL statement:

The proposal is that it would effectively exempt any salary over £100k for a club-trained player or over £175k for a non club-trained player from the cap, rather than all of the salary for one particular player.

So it's not like a club could sign Cooper Cronk and all his salary would be off the cap. They would still be taking over 10% of their cap allowance on one player.

It's more likely to allow clubs to pay a bit more to an existing high earning player to prevent them clearing off to the NRL/Union rather than create space for new signings.

I'm confident that what Leeds do with it will underwhelm.

I'd like you to go for Marquee Smith.

It sort of is though isn't it.

Looking at Andy's post they could sign Cooper Cronk for £300k but only £175k would count against the cap.

Presumably, we would have to designate the marquee player?

If so, it will be obvious to all that [ione[/i guy is on a damn good crack.

Also, if they using it on a club trained player, let's say, Watkins, isn't Ryan Hall or Zak Hardaker's agent going to be banging on the door?

Leeds success has been built upon a degree of salary equality between team mates. This goes against it.

Conversely it also allows Hall nor Hardaker to seek out those wages elsewhwere and if they can't get a marquee designation elsewhere then what can they do?

Marquee Mark would be more exciting.

No it doesn't at all. It can still have the exact same ethos, as equality in salaries if they wanted it that way. What it does do more than anything is give us a 1.925 million cap rather than 1.825 million, but you have to nominate the player concerned.

Every club however, including Leeds has an inequality in the salaries they pay, you would be pretty naïve to believe they don't. Surely you are not thinking, after all your posts, as an example that Ian Kirke was earning the same as Jamie Peacock. So what is the different in equality terms with the likes of Singleton and Cuthbertson?

For my two pence, I'm not sure that I like the Marquee player rule, It has the potential to allow clubs to keep or sign 1 "star player", which it may be a good thing. But it could have a load of down sides, It could cause lower earning clubs to be anchored at the bottom of the table if they can't compete to bring in a marquee player, or worse lose the talent they have to richer clubs. it could drive the salary expectations of players up which whilst good for the players could tax poorer clubs. It could be divisive with in the squads. I fear that this is a rule change that allows richer clubs to try to buy success. Not sure it will work or that it is good for the game. Also can't see Leeds blowing the budget on one player, it may however hamper our search to strengthen the squad.

Is the 50k rule for long serving players still in play? If so you can use the full 50k on just one player. Meaning you could have Watkins on about 200k (marquee), Hall on 200k (50k off the cap) and hardaker on 200k and it only count as 450k on the cap.

This leaves more cash for the other lads. If clubs are smart and GH is, basically we could just add an extra pay grade at the top of the scale.

...but nobody presently has the label "marquee player" ...the connotations just sound divisive to me.

If we bring in Cronk maybe Hall; Watkins and Hardaker might end up being marquee players at other clubs if the title floats their boat

But that won't be where it causes issues.

Let's say, for example, that Ryan Hall and Kallum Watkins are both on £100k a year as established internationals.

Word gets out that the RFU or an NRL club are sniffing after Watkins, so Leeds offer him £150k a year to stay in the knowledge that only £100k of that is going to count against the cap. If you're Ryan Hall's agent, aren't you immediately banging on Hetherington's door wanting to know why your client - a player of similar standing in the game - isn't also getting £150k?

It's going to become much harder to pin players down on long-term contracts, because their earning potential will fluctuate depending on which other clubs in SL have marquee player slots available that they might be able to exploit to get a few extra quid in their pockets.

I am sure that when a player is signed or a new contract issued, there is not a provision that you have to state this is our Marquee player. All the clubs have to do is operate their cap the way they do now, and advise the RFL compliance who their Marquee player is so that the cap calculations will be accurate.

All we are really seeing here is a way of increasing the cap by an amount that isn't even 10%, despite how many years it has been in operation.

yeah but what if you are Carl Ablett and you are seeing both hall and Watkins getting 100k already and you only get 60k?

Personally I think the idea that our success is based on rules allowing us to pay players less than their worth pretty distasteful