Don't watch Union but always thought Manu Tuilagi looks like a player with the build for Rugby League.

Kyle Eastmond would have been a good signing for them at half back.

They should get Izzy Falou. I don't think the RFL would try and ban him.

As a new franchise Toronto should have salary cap exemptions. The sport should be doing what it takes to make them successful.

Manu has been very injury prone over the past few seasons.
A season in RL could well break him further.

I agree. Injuries meant he only had 2 caps in what 6 years due to injuries when normally he would have been the first name on the team sheet.

What an interesting =#FF0000French slang term ! Fake Frenchman.

In France =#FF0000nobody has heard of Jean Capdouze

If you can sign a Union player free of salary cap, I'd throw my money at Semi Radradra or Marika Koroibete or both.
$BW was over the hill last time he had a go at playing League, and that was years ago.

Or being a complete & utter =#FF0000RACIST like =#FF0000David Argyle perhaps ?

They may be able to give an actual attendance figure instead of a best case scenario,
Some of their attendance numbers were close to capacity when the ground wasn't half full.
I know there is the beer festival round the back but, that must have been doing some HUGE trade during some of their games.

Do you mean the same SBW who was pivotal in the Roosters winning the premiership. He was superb.

For limited minutes in a few big games.

Must of been some player to get 2013 Roosters player of the season playing limited minutes.

Lol has someone actually just claimed SBW was over the hill and only played limited minutes the last time he was in rugby league?

Belter. He won the premiership, roosters player of the year and international player of the year

Yeah, and completely outshone by his second row partner Cordner who picked up Dally M second rower of the year - I somehow cannot imagine you getting quite as excited if he had signed with Toronto?

If he was a top performer in the NRL that year, why wasn't he even in the top 25 for the Dally M medal player of the year? He wasn't even the deemed to be the best second rower at the Roosters by the rest of the league.

But you think because he picked up a few awards at his clubs awards dinner and picked up the Provans-Summons for been the captain of a grand final winning team.

No, he wasn't over the hill last time he was in League, but he certainly was not one of the best as some seem to be claiming, he was probably around about average from the 9 games I saw him play.

So what, it was 6 years ago.

Point being he wasn't finished then and even at 34 physically he still looks great and his more than good enough to tear up Super league.

Ben Barba would have been a far better and cheaper option, on the rugby field anyway. Paying for the name/brand, and hoping that he will perform to the level expected.

So Noble now wants to change the salary cap.

And so it begins, as I predicted. The SBW wage will now push up other wage demands as the prescedent has now been set; squeezing cash strapped clubs even more.

If it drives up turnstiles and increases revenue then it may be worthwhile, but there is little historical evidence to support this.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

The cap is too low. I dont see how anyone can dispute that. In a world where Super League is competing against the NRL and Rugby Union £2.1 mil is not enough. NRL is £5 mil, while English Rugby Union its £7 mil.

Realistically how can the game in Europe progress when it cap is so much lower?

I think there needs to be a real discussion on the future of the cap and whether the game would be better if owners who had the money could spend what they want on players? You could bring in rules which said debt wouldnt be allowed to be placed on the club to finance such signings and money spent over a certain amount had to be ring-fenced and not be done via bank loans put against the club.

The quality of player playing in Super League is decreasing. The standard the paying public watch is getting worse and and as long as the salary cap stays so low the quality will not get any better.

One could argue would it drive up revenue and put more bums on seats but whats the alternative? Right now we have empty grounds regularly, a product which is has decreased in standard and the sport is not growing. Do we just stay as it is and hope things magically improve?

The cap organically is never going to grow substantially as the TV deal isn't going to get much bigger (could get worse), commercial sponsorship isn't going to get much bigger so the cap will never get big enough for SL to realistically compete with the NRL and Rugby Union.


Lets look at an example of say Latrell Mitchell. Roosters take an offer of $800,000 off the table so 2021 his possibly up for grabs but the idea of him playing in SL is nothing but a fantasy. The NRL has plenty of quality players year in year out trading between clubs but none of our clubs are in the picture and one needs to ask is that right?

All good points but, with the possible exception of Toulouse, just where do the other clubs get the extra cap spend from.
IIRC there were only 5 clubs spending full cap and not all of those were utilising both marque players.

The bottom line is that we are a poor third option behind the NRL and Union and even if the cap was removed completely, it would make little difference, apart from counting the time until the next "Bradford Bulls".

The cap is only too low if you're spending the max and not getting any success. When not even half of the premier competition is spending the current max cap, it makes raising it a none issue. When three-quarters of SL are at max spend then raising it would be worth considering, until then there's no point in harping-on about it.

Agree when all clubs are not even spending the full cap it shows something majorly wrong but we do have clubs who could afford to spend more than £2.1 mil.

Should increase slightly but introduce ways to keep best club talent. Maybe make players that have come through the system exempt from the cap.

I would be all for a staged increase in Salary Cap at say roughly 10% increase per year over 5 years, this would give Clubs a target & time to plan, upsell their product to supporters & commercial partners.

If SL were nearer to NRL it might just give SL Clubs a slight chance of retaining some players lost to NRL or a chance to bring one or two back.

To be honest, I can't think of a 'top name' RU player who'd boost Toronto and Super League.

Someone did mention Ben Te'o, who has played RL before. However, he's not exactly a household name and he's gone to a big French club with lots of cash.

I’d do something similar whereby I’d increase the cap steadily in a similar manner but also implement a 50% of revenue cap too.

I think linking the cap to revenue is a good way to incentivise clubs to increase their revenue and then at least half of that extra revenue has to get spent on areas other than player wages. So it also should increase club spending on marketing, facilities, club infrastructure etc.

I’d have the finite cap limit eventually eliminated so it would just be a straight 50% of income. But that would be done over 10+ years so you don’t get an immediate massive disparity between the richest and poorest clubs caps.