Exactly. It isn't like most SL teams are turning big profits and straining at the leash to spend more on player wages.

Most clubs are constrained by actual real-world money - not the cap. Relaxing the cap is like increasing your credit card limit. It doesn't in itself increase your wealth or spending power - well, not if you want to remain solvent.

Good post. The English rugby union salary cap is somewhere around 4.5 million pounds and a number of clubs want it raised.
This is despite two or three in the top division and numerous clubs outside the top flight being in serious trouble.
If they want to use their budgets to poach players like Semi Tadulala rather then developing their own talent then good luck to them.

Has Ashton not being doing so well then? Sounds like Danny Williams at Newcastle has done OK - again probably not a huge loss to SL, but given the rarity of half-decent British backs I really don't think we can afford to be blase about losing players at all. Check the threequarters from the top 8 teams competing in the play-offs (excluding Cats) for confirmation - a lot of overseas players and a smattering of good British players.

League's supporters problem is that we concetrate on the negetives too much. Lee smith leaving isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference to our sport, it won't even hamper Leeds that much.

Concentrate on improving our sport through coaching and infastructure and work towards a decent international team and we'll hopefully be able to offer our lads something that vaguely compares to unions pulling points. We'll also hopefully be able to negoteate a more realistic package from sky in relation to ru clubs.

Its not like 10 years ago, premiership ru is in the full swing of proffessionalism. Our lads can't just turn up for a cake walk any more. Even the likes of gasnier and SBW haven't exactly shone like you'd have expected a fews years back. Any signing from RL is a big gamble, so don't expect them to come hunting our big names very often.

Agree and in the case of Lee Smith / Leeds Rhinos there'll be another one along. In fact the lad that signed from Doncaster, Michael Coady looks a good prospect given that he's now moved into a full-time regime.

Given that Leeds have also chosen to release Ratu and Gibson, it doesn't look like they're struggling to fill a shirt. They have a good young player in Watkins and (if I'm right) have imported a centre for next season?

offiah played for the dragons

This is only going to be a problem because of the mindset of pommy players.


For Poms, its about feeling important ahead of anything else.


Become good enough to go to a big club. Become good enough to be well known in the town you play for. Become good enough to be talked about in the paper.

Now, its about being important enough that you can go and play rugby union.

I think even Rugby Union in the UK gets these English League players and doesn't think much of them. I mean, your players are struggling to make the grade at club level....in rugby union....

So I don't think its about a challenge or going over and playing test matches, because the fact is the biggest test in English "Rugby" is trying to beat us in Rugby league.


Its about being important like Sean Long and Keith Senior and Andy Farrell and all of the players who were really important in their little towns in Northern England but who were nothing once they left.

..................and Jason Robinson of course - who withered into obscurity once he switched codes.

creamed

What about the rest of them?

2 of the biggest losses to union IMO are George Ford & Owen Farrell. There's no doubt IMO that both players would have been great League players, now they've turned to the dark side

Lets clear something up.....they are English....so no, they wouldn't have been great at League.

I really do think that Union in the UK is going to implode in the next 5 years… they have two massive hubs of support in Leicester and the West Country… Leeds and Bath (Leicester in particular getting 24k at home matches while they haven't scored a try all season!)

The rest are trying to run a £4.5 million salary cap on gates of 4 - 10k a week. Anybody running a business knows this is not sustainable and if the sugar daddies up and leave half the clubs would go under tomorrow

I know it isn't glamorous but let's keep running our sport prudently and keep spreading the word at the grass roots level and the strategy will pay off. Full marks to Richard Lewis for instilling this discipline

If we lose one or two Lee Smiths along the way, so be it

OK... I meant Gloucester not Leeds before it's mentioned (was thinking of Leeds as one of the unsustainable ones!)

Well said Dunbar

Considering it's arguably the second biggest sport in the country and let's not forget a global leviathan, some rugby union club attendances are awful at best.
The thing is that a lot of union clubs don't rely on gate receipts. A sizeable part of their income comes from sponsorship and corporate.

Really looking forward to post number 70.........I am sure it will be as much b0ll0x as this.
FFS......RU in the UK may well be unballanced, but to think that the RU establisment isn't worth 20+ times the RL one (financially) is just plain stupid


Get south, get watching and Get a grip!
Harlequins RU 12,750 sell outs every week (EXCEPT WHEN THE SOUTH STAND IS RUBBLE)
Saracens......40k at wembley, London Irish.......17k regulars....I could carry on, but what's the point....

Just to add to GutterFax

Didn't Quins have 50 - 60 000 at Xmas and something similar the other week at Twickers.

They have a big sponsor in Ethiad and even with Bloodgate have recently brought Samsung or similar on board. The average salary of the fans at Quins is 40k plus I think I read. 40-50 pound a ticket for the infamous Leinster game which was sold out.

Big contract with Sky-International rugby is huge

Im not sure they have that many problems

I tell you what my friend - why don't we keep this civilised... the reason I come on here is that I live in Stratford on Avon and really miss chatting about Rugby League... I certainly don't enjoy being called stupid

I accept that Harlequins get good gates but to suggest that London Irish have 17k regulars when they average circa 11k is a bit of an overstatement (and a lot of that average is bolstered by the 20+ they get on St Patricks day... where are those die hard fans when they aren't wearing green hats and drinking Guinness?)

And that's the point - RU fans turn out for the occasion... Twickenham, Wembley etc. To be fair, I am jealous as hell that Saracens can get 40k at Wembley for a league game while less than that turned up for Millennium Magic in Cardiff and Edinburgh

Back to the point - there are a number of clubs... Wasps, Sale, Newcastle, Leeds etc that are without doubt living beyond their means and I really do think this will come back to bite them. RU will thrive (due to the International game) but it isn't all rosy

And that's the last from me on this because I am here to talk RL... and we have a fantastic 6 weeks to look forward to... Grand Finals in both hemispheres and a 4 Nations. I don't care what the national press make of it... I can't wait

In rugby union certain clubs command impressive crowds on certain occasions. On other less publicised times the numbers are a little more modest.
If we look at a random night, tonight for example, the average rugby league crowd was 4,263. The average rugby union crowd taken from the elite Guiness Premiership and Magners League was 3,760.
Make of it what you will.

Lets all hope and pray that rugby onion dies a slow and painful death like it almost has in australia.

Not sure that will ever happen, but some unions fans aren't happy...



Saracens chief executive Edward Griffiths has criticised fans who booed during Sunday's win over Gloucester.

Supporters jeered and slow handclapped during a lengthy passage of second-half kicking at Vicarage Road, a reaction Griffiths described as "astonishing".


[urlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/my_club/saracens/8278528.stm[/url

Kyle Eastmond is another one about to announce he is leaving. Been offered mega bucks by 4 union clubs, wants to stay in league but said would be an idiot to turn money down. Looks like sale sharks is the destination

Something has to be done to stop the younger players leaving.

Should the RFL offer our best young players a central contract to prevent them going to Union. With players already gone and rumours of Sale sniffing around Eastmond maybe the RFL should step in and centrally contract some of these players (perhaps one per club) and not count it on the cap.

While the cap may very well balance up SL into an even playing field, it will do nothing for our chances at international level if our best youngsters are bought by Union because the cap prevents clubs from paying them what they are worth.