Its all the port, grouse and caviar.............served to you by your northern butler.

I'd say 100% yes.

Jonathon Davies, Tuigamla, Botica, Gibbs, Quinell. The situation at present as regards a national presence, is worse than it's ever been. RL in general need the exposure that top name signings would bring.

I understand the reasons behind the salary cap, spreading talent, keeping the books clean but the fact remains that as in the pre cap era, most trophys are won by one of 4 teams. The best the rest can expect, is a place in the play offs.

We should probably try and if we succeed it can only give the game(in UK) the publicity that we need to expose our product to the wider public so basically yes let's go for it.

no...the first year of said union player's contract would'nt be included in the salary cap..but years 2,3 etc would meaning the team would have to balance their salary budget to accommodate him...

Quick question. This benefits youth development how exactly...?

yes, remember the Welsh RL team of the 90's, it was competitive and drew a crowd, why? Because of RU converts. If we want a better Int competition then we need to be strengthening the UK (&Irelnad) teams and France, RL isn't producing the amount or quality of jnrs so lets convert the best RU players to help out.

If clubs can afford it then why not?

In terms of NRL, again I say yes as long as they are pacific Islanders, PNG or South Africans.

Wouldn't this just be abused in a similar way to quotas e.g. Sam Tomkins goes to Orrell, Danny McGuire goes to Carnegie, 5 minutes later say they don't like it and want to return, bingo on the salary cap.

Or what if Union approach a player, e.g. Eastmond at Saints, should Saints then be able to exempt him to stop him changing codes ?

Instead of them just being exempt to the cap, why not have them on central contracts to the RFL as well?

This would mean that RU players wouldn't become the new Kolpacs as the RFL could but sanctions on what players from RU could be signed to these contacts eg x number of international appearances and things of that nature. We'd therefore get better players crossing codes AND be able to compete with the money of RU

Well wasn't this already done back in 2000 or so? I'm sure there was a story about certain RL's having their wages subsidized by the RFL so they wouldn't switch codes

For a couple of players, (and not a great return on Cunningham for GB caps) don't know how if fitted with the salary cap though. Maybe every club should be allowed a joker, one player exempt from the salary cap. It may favour the clubs with more money but stop the best players from switching codes or attract major talent from the NRL or union.

Would also add, in regarding abusing the system, you simply put in a rule that says that a convert who has played RL cannot become salary cap exempt unless his initial switch was over 3 years ago.

i still think that points system being proposed in Aus is the way to go, it is the most transparent system, and would allow exemptions like this without the potential to have the system abused

Could you give us some more info about this point system smokey?

thanks in advance.

Players are given a set number of points depending on experience, rep status, quality etc. A team can only field a 17 that are worth a certain number of total points. The downside to the system is that A) it is somewhat subjective how many points a players value is B) Unless total points are allocated to a squad a team could stock pile decent players in case of injuries.

having some sort of duel contracts between union and league ?
imagine Ugo Monye trying to keep his fitness up by playing for Quins RL as well as Quins RU. Couldn't see the harm especially in Quins case they need all the help they can get.

Better still have a 10 mile rule, anyone born within 10 miles of the team they play for is exempt from the cap or at least on a different beneficial rate

did'nt liam botham have a dual contract @ leeds?

One player maybe yest if they were an international, but definitely not every player signed

Quote ="pyeman"Could you give us some more info about this point system smokey? thanks in advance.'" www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... 10l50.html

Quote ="pyeman"Could you give us some more info about this point system smokey? thanks in advance.'" www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... 10l50.html

A percentage of salary (e.g. max 50% exempted from the cap) and max of one player per club.

At Leeds it almost certainly wouldn't work anyway, as Hetherington has imposed a wage structure which means a fair few players are on less than they could earn elsewhere. Bringing in a very highly paid union convert into that mix would destroy the very team spirit that has helped push Leeds to where they are.

To answer the original Poster....NO!

What this does raise is the pi55 poor state to out RL Development programme across the UK. 14 SL teams, with one based in France means that (at 27 men squads) we can't find 351 players good enough to play Rugby League from the UK. Take into account that at present, and not counting Hull Kingston Australians most clubs have 5 overseas players then that number comes down to 299.
What is being proposed here is that we can't find 350 odd players in the UK without having to go overseas or pinch someone from another code


If you remove Quins from the equation, then this number comes down to 324!

The Population of the cities, towns and villages along the M62 must be about 6 million people and what we are saying here is that a sport with over 100 years of heritage and tradition can't fins 324 players good enough to play in Superleague? WTF?

If someone WANTS to play League, let them come on the wages on offer. Look at what is happening to Wendyball? ALL the clubs lose money and some of the bigger ones are in real trouble. Do we want RL to go down this route? The cap is working and in time, the expansion of the game will help the development of players, but some people want it all and they want it now.

The RFL have a plan. Just because we don't agree with parts of it doesn't mean we should abandon it. Rugby League fans do seem to spend a little too much time worrying about what other codes are up to rather than worrying about the long term future of the game.

So no. If a player can't be tempted to League on the salary on offer, let them stay with Union. Stop trying to score points against Union. We have the better product, we have more skillful players and we have a growing audience........union will always try to cherry pick players, but so be it. As I always tell my Union loving mates......yes, England did win the RWC in 2003, but you would never have done it without a league defensive coach and a league try scorer

But what you're not taking into account is one little word "football". That's what we have to compete against in order to get kids playing our sport. Along the M62 you've got Bolton, Blackburn, Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Everton, Wigan, Blackpool, all Premiership clubs, though I give you the last two may not be much longer, but still there's the lure of the glamour of the premiership footballer lifestyle. What the best SL players earn in a year is what some of these footballers make in a week. That's the main reason we struggle to find the numbers of quality athletes to play our sport

so, we should be paying players £250,000 a week then eh........


as I say...6,000,000 people, 350 players......sod wendyball and Union....and cricket and anything else. Concentrate on our own development, get our own house in order and then look at nicking union players if they are really good.
I repeat....350 players out of a 6,000,000 catchment area that is rich in the heritage of RL.

But also one that has 15/16 semi pro clubs that are being discouraged from trying to develop players due to stupid unneccessary rules brought in by the RFL

I thought that particular calumny had been knocked on the head when your own source, Leigh chief executive Allan Rowley, was finally quoted on your [url=http://viewtopic.php?p=15446399#p15446399thread[/url on the subject.

Hi exact words were ""We are now told that we can run a scholarship providing we run an under 18s team in addition to a reserve team," but you've decided not to, on the grounds of cost.

I think it takes a particularly twisted view of reality to regard a requirement that scholarship players have somewhere to continue their development when they hit 16 as 'stupid unnecessary rules'.

To be fair, it is an unnecessary restriction. Why would we want to make it more difficult for any club to contribute to player development at a level they can sustain? If Leigh can't afford to run under 18's what is gained by preventing them from running a scholarship?