I suppose the counter argument being Saints and Leeds didn’t have to sell their ground to for their success (unlike a certain other team before the SL era that shall remain nameless

)

I certainly hope that in the IMG era sees a big push increase in the cap, though I certainly fear that all will happen is the. Same quality players see their market value inflated. As Warrington have shown with the marquee rule it’s not just an issue of money. Forcing more clubs to spend what Saint/Leeds/Wigan do on their academy would be a good start …

I'd say the cap needs a one-off increase to scrape back the years when it went backwards in real terms through staying flat. That would just mean that average players' salaries are back where they were a decade ago compared to other jobs.

But as you say, lifting the cap with no controls would just mean more money for existing players, for zero net benefit. I don't mind the marquee rule, but they may need to look at other exemptions, particularly those aimed at rewarding developing your own players.

Warrington is a bad example as buying your way to success has never worked. If you look at Leeds, the fact that our squad is apparently at/near the cap like Sts is ridiculous when you compare player for player, as a combined team would be hugely dominated by Sts. It just shows that if you don't manage it well you can end up in a real mess.

Just have an exemption for home grown talent.

So home grown players dont count on the salary cap. SIMPLE

You'd need limits on homegrown exemptions to stop clubs stockpiling players, and you'd have to allow for the fact that some clubs have much smaller natural catchments than others. We sign plenty of youngsters from other clubs' catchments as juniors, as do other clubs. I'm not sure its fair to count a kid from Cas as a Leeds product for cap purposes.

There's no point in increasing the cap if the clubs haven't got the money to spend anyway.

Who are we definitely losing next season?
Sutcliffe to Hull FC I know,
Tetevano?
Are we likely to keep hold of Zak / Bentley?

No easy answers are there? My hope that a significant increase or abolishment of the cap would A) Make the sport more appealing to young players who are now being lost to the sport B) Help keep the best English players in England C) Attract a bit more sparkle from the NRL. I appreciate there are down sides to all this but the cap as it is just strangling the potential for any growth in the sport. It's brought about a fairer competition, but you only have to read the posts of many on here to get a view on what it has done for the game as a product.

Well done Saints. Terrific team and the benchmark. Proud of the boys, did us proud. Sezer missing was definitely felt especially close to the saints line, same with Newman and Fusi. Saints pack was just too big for ours plus lomax was class. Thought Austin played well and Zak.

Something good to build on though for us, we’re back contesting the big one. Be good to see where Smith can take us with a full pre season and further additions

The salary cap has levelled the sport down, restricted wages in a way that possibly is illegal, and has meant we have kept clubs who bring very little to the table at levels of player expenditure that they cannot meet.

The idea was to level out the competition upwards by sharing out the better players, well it hasn’t worked and needs a rethink. Perhaps a better way to stop clubs going bankrupt would be to fix the cap at a % of turnover which should incentivise the clubs to increase turnover. There should of course be other rules around developing players etc. but that seems a better direction to go in.

Oh and 5 year Franchising should be back on the table, it’s the only way we can possibly grow the game.

It will be interesting to see what Rohan Smith can do with a full pre season.
We are just too physical (even without Walmsley). Our ball movement was crisp and runs were strong. We have missed Dodd in our attack. With him on the pitch I think we win last nights game by more points. But Leeds have injuries too to be fair.
I have reservations over a few Leeds players. Players like Smith, Leeming, Thompson, Gannon have nice moments but sometimes I question whether they are even super league standard players. I thought Austin has been great for you in this run of wins.

Anyway, see you next season folks. I hope Smith continues to improve you guys. A strong Leeds team can only be a good thing for the game.

It’s OK proposing ideas which would clearly benefit Leeds but we need to consider the wider picture. Leeds have had plenty of ability to build a better side (academy development, marquee signings) but we have just got our recruitment consistently wrong for years.

For me we could and should be doing better to build a higher quality team under the existing rules. As for the wider sport: the problem isn’t the salary cap as much as the general financial weakness of the sport.

I don’t see how introducing more disparity between the clubs will help. We’re not Premier League with a line of billionaires looking to buy RL clubs as trophies.

NRL has salary cap and their product is outstanding.

Thompson’s going isn’t he, and Briscoe?
Zak has been instrumental in our form turnaround and I thought he was very good yesterday.

Prior going round again would be a mistake. We need to exit Tetevano too. He just doesn’t do enough to earn his salary and never has.

We need to bring in one or two more high quality players too.

A salary cap thats twice the SL cap.

So St Helens, Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Catalans, Hull FC should all have to spend less than they could on playing squads so (example) poor old Wakefield can still have a very small outside chance of success?

The money in the NRL is so much bigger it’s impossible to compare to SL. We lose some of our better players over there and they are average in that competition. We have to do things differently.

First 5 years of franchises should be to existing SL teams but take the shackles off them and make them work to grow their income to fund better players young or mature.

Was pretty confident at half time, then that woeful 4 man attempt on Hurrell happened...Cant defend like that in Grand Finals...Only seen it once and was fair cut but from memory Leeming has got to stop that ball getting to ground. Been critical of Bently this season but thought he was brilliant last night, Rohans really turned the lad around.

Other than that, proud of the squad and coaching team, been an unbelievable turnaround, looking forward to the future more than i have for quite a while.

Congratulations to Saints (and the RFL), but seriously, the best team in the comp won the comp, cant take it away from them, quality side.

A big turning point early in the second half were the 2 back to back penalties conceded by Austin that marched us backwards just when we needed momentum.

Thought Austin had his best game for Leeds yesterday, worked so hard to try to create and really threw (sometimes literally) himself into defence.

We badly missed a second halfback, not that it would have changed the outcome as we were overpowered by Saints. Even their backs run with more purpose than most of our forwards. Still we’ve very clearly turned the corner, now we need more quality on the pitch, we’ve got the right man at the helm now, back him.

He did I'd agree with that, but those 2 penalties were pretty unnecessary and killed us.

I agree with you on franchises and again probably the secret sauce is in how exactly it’s done.

I’m not even sure Leeds want to spend more money on players right now after the stadium development and COVID impact.

One potential benefit of removing the cap is you’d also remove a load of admin which neither the clubs nor the governing body need.

I mean WTF was Smith doing? Trying to congratulate Hurrell?

Absolutely, couldn’t agree more

I think some Leeds fans are a little too blinkered in their ideas of this Saints team.

Like someone said, the record books show them winning 4 in a row. They have to be up there with the best teams ever. Along with our team from '07-'09.

But comparing this Saints team now to us back then for me is hard. The whole back room and recruitment from Saints these last few years has been great. Something a lot of SL teams have lacked. Especially us.

The Saints '06 individually back then was for me better, but the whole Saints club on a whole now is far stronger. That pains me to say it. But it's true! Gawwy may have got Smith right, but the last few years has been hard. Recruitment is massive this close season and we need to get shut of some serious dead wood.

The future for Leeds is looking bright. We have some great youngsters coming through and there's a great buzz about again. MOT!

An obvious but key thing we need to do is have the player that we have playing somewhere near their potential.Easier said than done but Saints do it every year.

Thompson maybe but the other three not super league standard?

What a load of rubbish.

You can use the intensity argument going back 10 years from 2005 to 95 for example, but definitely not going back 10 years from now. Pound for pound, 2000-2010 was probably the best super league era for intensity and entertainment, as well as stars in the competition. We've got into a situation now where basically all the top teams are underperforming (Warrington, hull, Leeds, wigan) and there's no fix because non of them have very good spines, the quality young players for those spines aren't there, and if they are waiting in the wings will take years to come through. Scrapping around for overseas won't work. Saints have a good spine, who are a good age. They will just keep winning and winning...and winning. Attendance in next year's grand final will be lower. Tv money will eventually follow suit.

This is the worst I've ever seen it.

We'd have been better off not making the grand final, never good enough to win it, but now we've got a loss on our copybook.