No matter what the result/scoreline , Smith is going no where soon , the sleve has already decided that .

But a less than 50% win ratio from the first dozen games next season , well then things may change

Second hand info that it could well be Cas that go down and not Wakefield.
Be harsh on Cas but I`m told it`s from a reliable source.
Hard to believe imo but been told by 2 people now so who knows?

What would be the reason for that as based upon league positions this season.
Find it hard to believe

I can’t see how that would happen, both teams are now recruiting/retaining players on the basis of their respective leagues.

points deduction for cap issues?

Do Cas pay up to the cap limit or afford to do it ?

can't think of any other reason to lose points. playing an ineligible player? not a clue really

Unless it’s something nuclear like a winding up order.

Anyone else going Friday?

Yep, I'll be there.

Me too. More in hope than expectation.

Ive got increasingly frustrated with the erratic style of play and performances throughout the year and I'm constantly scratching my head at what RS is trying to achieve and what his playing ethos is, but, I can't help but like him and how he talks about development in his interviews. Damn him!

Thought you got points deducted for that, and handed out the year after.

everyone one of us can talk a good game seth...

I’ll be there, if you see a codger rocking back and forward doing a Gregorian chant, please stop by and join in.

Interesting bunch you lot

Can you get done for not spending a minimum of a million like a minimum speed limit?

If you see a semi codger trying to console a wailing 6 year old boy because we’re playing crap, feel free to buy me a hot chocolate

I’m not going, can’t make it. Let’s hope we finish with some pride. Desperately needed but I can see Cas sneaking it

The NRL talked about a minimum cap spend a while ago. When David Middleton was with the NRL he visited England and said some teams were spending only 30-40% of the cap while others were maxed out. Leeds were one of the clubs who voted against increasing the cap for a long time, and its one of the reasons why even with marquee allowances SL clubs just cannot compete with the NRL. We have to use marquee for average NRL players now, and most clubs are picking up fringe players. I know the NRL cap has exploded, but SL didn't even keep pace with inflation for years.

It’s an interesting point. The idea of a cap works in theory to even out a system, but it assumes a closed system. In reality we are in competition with our core assets - players - with RU and NRL.

Whether many clubs could afford to increase the cap much I don’t know - aren’t all clubs pretty much posting losses as it is?

Most likely. If we increased the cap we'd see a big few open a more consistent gap on the rest, but just looking at most seasons it seems like some clubs just don't spend as much, and 'mid size' clubs tend to get lucky with players or they are unlucky (lucky and unlucky could equally mean badly managed) and don't tend to stay at the top for long. What Leeds are showing is that with the cap acting as a very hard limit, its really difficult to swap out a lot of players in one go. It will have taken us two off-seasons, and even then the squad for next season probably isn't exactly what Smith (or any other coach) would want.

I'm no expert on the cap but if you have homegrown exemptions, marquee etc doesn't that raise the cap significantly?

They have built loads of exemptions into it and over complicated it to the point where for me they should just raise the cap.

These policies must suit the whole game and not just Leeds of course, but there’s no point encouraging clubs to develop young talent if they just get cherry picked off by richer competitions all the time.

We could have spent hundreds of thousands invested in Newman and as soon as he strings some consistency together an NRL club offers to double his salary and poof.

In theory you could spend any amount on your marquee allowance, but that doesn't raise the wage of the average player. I would think Wire and Catalans probably outspend everybody else, but even they wouldn't be spending over 2.5 million.

Cas deserve to go down if they've broken the cap paying that lot!