An entirely NRL-based England team could well take to the field within a few years IMO.

I dont think that at the point Smith joined Wire, that Wire would have offered them a package that Leeds couldnt match and that would tempt McGuire or Sinfield.

I dont think once we got Peacock he would have left. Boyhood Leeds fan, winning trophies. Im not sure he would have wanted to spend his 'bonus' years elsewhere. Whether the issue with Bradford that led to his leaving would still have occurred is another question.

Burrow fit leeds, whether he would have been as valuable to another side is unlikely. But perhaps.

JJB would play for Leeds for free

We would probably have seen the likes of Smith Webb Donald maybe ablett, Ali would probably have gone earlier, Senior too.

The counterpoint from that for Leeds is we likely wouldnt have seen some of the 'filler' signings we saw, The Millards, Crosses, O'neils, probably would be getting better than Galloway (who isnt terrible) Garbutt etc this year.

It's also entirely possible that without a salary cap we would have 3 clubs left in the league.

Why would any of our rivals have wanted our players? You been telling us for years that they're rubbish. If you're saying Leeds benefitted most from the salary cap by not losing their best players then that must mean Leeds had more top players to lose, hence effectively saying Leeds won their GF's because they had the best players.

A nice cul-de-sac you've driven yourself into there William.

the thing is, it isnt really, there would be an equilibrium found.

id also argue that if we want regulations to stop a team buying all the best talent, we can do so far more precisely and better than the variable and more subjective financial aspect.

You also have to remember that the SC doesnt actually reflect affordability. One thing we learned from franchising is that some SL clubs, like Salford, Like Wakefield were struggling to hit £4m turnover, where as leeds and Les Catalans are up around £10m. If it is 'affordable' for Wakefield to be looking at spending £1.8m of £4m it is affordable for Leeds to be spending £3.6m of £10m. That would probably be more than any RL club in the world is spending on Wages.

As we see from the WCS Nrl clubs are building squads on another level from what SL clubs are building, which would comfortably win SL, on £500k, or nearly a million AUSD less than what the SC deems leeds could 'afford'.

Very likely given the exodus of players - it does represent our best chance of being able to beat them on a regular basis

Many clubs had to sell their grounds to pay of huge debts accrued during the lavish spending era of the 80's and 90's. That was a one time deal, they have no assets left and in future would rely entirely on the generosity of a multi millionaire donor. Frankly I'd rather the sport lived within it's means and multi millionaire's gave their money to cancer charities.

Obviously Leeds being such a poverty club, wouldn't have been able to compete with these huge offers coming in from rich clubs like.......warrington and errr....

There's just as much an argument that the salary cap held Leeds back. All those years when we had the likes of burrow mcguire and sinfield in their prime and some of the signings included the likes of ian kirke, jamie thackray, richard moore. Without the cap we could have tempted some doozies over from the NRL with a wod of cash and won even more.

It's all about where you can take the discussion, your agenda. Lack of transfers topic can lead onto discussing about the salary which can lead onto super duper league-BAD, before super league-GOOD.

Forced austerity - it's a couple of words that are going to be ramned down people's throats on this board if you have the inclination to read through it.

So would I. The club with all the success over the 80s & 90s paid a heavy price indeed.

Multi Millionaires like Marwan are used to fixing things with cash quickly. That doesn't work.

The thing is, it does work, thats why Multi-millionaires are multi-millionaires. Because they look at how they can invest and turn things round. Not expect to fix things slowly without investment.

Its not your money to A) give away or B) to reject on behalf of the players.

Its pretty easy to be lovely and altruistic when its not your money you are paying out nor doing without.

and it also hugely devalues and mitigates the benefits of us beating them on a regular basis.

It's abit of both. You don't become a multi millionaire from business exploits without knowing how to wisely use your money and get the biggest return. Most successful business were built over a long period of time, the same can go for sports teams. Teams that have a sustained period of success normally go through a building period beforehand. The problem is when these business millionaires come in and think they can just sign loads of players and have immediate success, they think it's easy and ignore other factors, failing to apply the principles that made them the money.

Higham signed technically for Wigan from bradford