He will take the money and run to union. It has been on the cards for a while.

So that is why our chairman is of down under on Friday I hope he is not to late

London bound, he's also convinced Soward to stay there with him so they can form the most devastating Half Back combination Super League has ever seen...

You are Walter Mitty.

So when he teams up with Chase,SBW and Frank Pritchard along with at least another 6 big name signings at Salford i guess that means we will be winning everything next year.
Time to start increasing the stadium capacity to fit everyone in and dont forget to book your season tickets early.

WOW! What an idea!

If you don't mind, I will call David Hughes immediately!

This is the only way we can stop the rot of Super League playing standards, given the economic situation in Britain and the incompetence of the RFL management in acquiring funding for the game.

The marquee player exemption -- one or two players exempt from the salary cap --- would seem to be the best solution IMO.

As unlikely as it is, Salford would be daft not to make him an offer. Say £400k a year for 3 years.
And also to think Wigan will be saving around that with Sam Tomkins and Pat Richards leaving at seasons end. You never know!!!

Benji is a great talent but I dont blame wests for taking away the contract. Marshall's form for 12 - 18 months has been patchy. He doesnt attack the line anymore and is just happy to pop the ball of to someone else. Look at how Thurston plays compared to Benji. JT wins game for his sides and is a real game changer.

Benji on form isnt guaranteed to start for the Kiwi's. On form the half backs should be Foran & Shaun Johnson.

The days of star players of any description plying their trade in Super League are well and truly over. They'll either ply their trade in the NRL or in Rugby Union.

Unless we change the salary cap rukes, to allow exemptions for one or two marquee players, as I suggested.

That way the rich owners like Koukash, Moran, and Lenagan can attract the big names.

Reading the reports Marshall hasn't covered himself in glory here.

He had a handshake agreement with the CEO earlier in the season on a 2 year extension, taking his deal to 2017. The CEO left the club 2 months ago and the club, while not wanting to extend his contract, have offered him more money for his existing one!

He's been garbage over the past year, lost his captains armband for NZ, gained weight, spat his dummy out when dropped to the bench and got his old coach the sack.

I think Tommy Leuluai is ahead of him too.

If anyone's watched him play in the last couple of seasons he's no great loss at all. I hear Japanese RU are after him.

I tend to agree with that - a total exemption for your marquee player at the top end of the salary range would seem a sensible idea, together with greater dispensation for club-trained players at the other end of the range; makes the cap go further whilst creating incentives to improve the development of young players, and goes some way to halting the NRL player drain.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jul/16/wests-tigers-benji-marshall-release-requestConfirmed his retirement[/url

Its a shame because he has been one of the most entertaining players to watch that I have seen. However time marches on and the "has been" in my first sentence applies, he probably knows himself that the clock is ticking. You can't blame him for cashing in on the yakuza or French money launderers dollars in yawnion while he still has the chance to do so as it would make a nice pension pot. Thanks for the memories, he has served RL well; time to go with the future and let the inferior game feed off the scraps of the past.

Cashing in? He won't earn the money hes been offered by Wests just playing for 1 club.

Up to him of course but I don't see why you'd leave League a few months before a World Cup. Anyone?

He wouldn't get picked?

Has his form dropped that much? I don't really follow the NRL.

Yeah, pretty much. I think it's accepted that Foran and Johnson would be NZ's starting halves.

It's all very sad really. We are talking about a player who has been a brilliant attacking force for Wests Tigers and New Zealand in the past. It is also true that he has attracted a lot of kids to play the game of rugby league.

To bow out like this, in a form slump and with a lot of anger, would be very tragic.

However I am not sure that he is going to increase his income just by switching to Super Rugby in Auckland. Given his current form they are unlikely to pay more than his existing salary of AU$750,000 (certainly not the AU$1 million a year he has been asking for from Wests Tigers). Moreover he is most unlikely to be picked as fly half for the All Blacks, and thus will not raise his earnings by that route. So he will probably play rugby union in Japan in the off season, wear himself out, and thereby become a bridesmaid to the stars in NZ rugby union.

A better option for our game would be for him to sign up with a Super League club, but the clubs who would be interested are unlikely to be able to afford more than his current salary, and even that would stretch them to their limits. Which again leads us back to the need for salary cap reform in Super League.

Marshall is a huge loss in marketing terms, but as a player he looks shot ATM. I watched him against the Broncos recently and he didn't take on the line once in the whole game. What was worse, it looked to me that the main issue was he didn't want to, as when he moved laterally with the ball gaps opened up in front of him, and he didn't look to be carrying any sort of injury. Basically he played like a player completely unwilling to put his body on the line (in defence as well).

It's a real shame his RL career will end like this, although in a massive dip in form now some of the stuff he has done on a RL field has just been out of this world, the pass behind his back to the winger against parratta being one of them.

Bet Beau Ryan is gutted