I see your point, but from a club perspective, their primary consideration is whether they get to stay in SL and then whether they are capable of winning anything.

Every SL club will spend its full salary cap (or as near as damn it) on players' wages. If Bradford, for example, decided to not sign Orford and instead put his salary into youth development, they'd be left so far behind all the other SL clubs in the short term, and might not even be in SL by the time their investment in youth began to bear fruit.

The only way it would work is if every club was forced to spend a specific amount of their income on youth development. This may mean that salary caps need to be reduced to free up the cash.

Bradford's problems, at a time when the prevailing winds of news is generally bad and season tickets are going on sale.

Exactly! The SL grant should have to have a certan amount of it spent on Jnr development. If it means teams can't sign some over the hill Aussies on 200k contracts then so be it!

Did you also include the image rights, cars, pensions and other benefits elements of their packages? See the RFL Operational Rules - Salary Cap section 5.6 for full details. Did you audit all elements of their packages? Given that most of the statutory audit work is directed towards the balance sheet and not the P&L let alone the payroll.

And anyway, even assuming the figure quoted in the media is correct, he could be being paid at least in part in AUD. The currency the transfer fee from Souths for Burgess will likely have been denominated in. AUD 500k p.a. a year or so ago would have been just over £200k.

Also, even with what you have said you may have breached the rules of confidentiality. I would be far from impressed if I was your institute, your firm or your client. And that's speaking as someone who qualified 30 years ago.

But how much of the money raised for internationals goes to the clubs themselves? I'd bet not much if any.

So I ask again, what benefit does the current international setup offer to SL clubs?

Go get them from Companies House. They were filed end October, when due.

But you know full well such a figure does not appear in a set of statutory accounts.

One thing I can assure you of though - the Bulls are very heavily concentrating on youth development under McNamara and Hood. Probably as much as any club in the competition, I suspect. They have to, since otherwise you end up with a team of middling journeymen like had to be the case in the inherited situation after Caisley and Noble left, and after we had lost over half of the academy & home-grown.

Bulls have done pretty good in bring forwards through the ranks - we have two more Burgesses going full-time this coming season, for example, and it is likely the RAB supporters group will be sponsoring them - but less so in the backs and especially in the halves. This signing plugs a serious medium-term weakness until the club is hopefully able to develop the successor internally.

I also think you will find the Bulls will have one of the youngest teams in the competition next year, and e.g. fewer overseas players than Leeds for one.

People are concentrating on a headline figure quoted in the Aussie media, the accuracy or otherwise of which no-one is in a position to check. Maybe if they had access to the true gross value of some of the packages elsewhere they would be less surprised.

It has always been this way.

The clubs wanted 30 league games a year in the old days, surprise, surpirise we are just about back to that again.

The clubs are right behind ideas to strengthen the international squad... as long as it doesn't mean their players playing. (Note the number of injuries when it comes around to mid-season 'origin', games against france, etc).

The fact is that the game in this country just is not on the same footing as in AUS... they have their pick of athletes (like soccer here) on top of the best what would here be called Kolpacks (sp?). Yet they just convert them to AUS or NZ players when it suits them.

Bulls could not hold on to Burgess. He had a year left on his contract and made it clear he wanted to go to Oz ASAP. And he made it clear that there was no other British club he wanted to play for. What would you have done to retain him?

And you should be grateful - he will almost certainly develop further and faster in the NRL than in SL, to the benefit of England.

Oh...and it has been widely reported that Burgess took a pay CUT to move to Oz - because it was playing in Oz that was the draw, not just the money.

Burgii.

Burgessii, please!

I don't usually approve of SL clubs bringing in 30 + Aussies on pension top-up's, but given the situation at Bradford then I think it is very much a risk worth taking, even if he did have a poor 2009 in the NRL. If his heart is in it he'll still be a cut above the other 7's in Super League, the only worry is whether the rest of our backs are capable of benefiting from him.

I'm not sure that he will. He will be 32 soon after SL kick off, 35 going on 36 when his very welathy SL contract runs out, he is coming off the back of a poor year and to me he looked like he was worn out and due for retirement. The fact he may b a cut above is very telling on the quality level of SL.

Whoopie do another oap to collect money and 870k of it as well

I guess they will run with the story of how.... yawn....he will bring on the other players

Pot calling the kettle black?

England struggles to produce test centres. Saints have Gidley, the wrong side of 30, earning his pension in their back line for the last three years.

Saints have also just bought Sia Soliola and shipped a young British centre, Ste Tyrer out to Salford (most likely never to return).

tyrer was out on loan last season at celtic,mostly in the reserves,so soliola is not the reason for him being at salford.
saints have one of the best youth policys in the league.if you are going to have a pop at it back it up with some hard facts.
4 england players,3 from junior ranks
3 man of steel winners,all from junior ranks
scott moore recalled from loan because he is good enough.if tyrer proves to be good enough,he too will return

Indeed it is.

Unfortunately, I certainly can't think of a real top quality scrum half currently playing in Super League.

Huge amount of money to spend on one player and a very lengthy contract to be giving someone who is 32. A big name player, but many say he has had a poor season in the NRL and is way past his best. Time will tell if this will be a good signing.

Bradford have released/sold some big name players - Newton, Morrison, Deacon, Burgess, Tadulala etc and I have to be honest, some of their signings don't fill me with any confidence they will change Bradford's fortunes.

Good luck to them though - I hope they can rebuild as a club.

You're being too defensive. I personally criticised the Gidley re-signing for exactly the same reason. Saints are going through a transition, and are unlikely to win anything next year. So why not take a chance bringing through some of the younger players, rather than spend the cash on Gidley in an attempt to finish as slightly higher losers than otherwise ?

I'm not having a dig at Bradford for club's sake. I'm having a dig at the mentality which sees this happen year on year on year at all SL clubs. The whole point about licensing was to give people a chance to build and develop. It was precisely to stop signings like Gidley and Orford - Aussies at the tail-end of their careers who take large amounts of cash from the game and prevent young English players getting game time.

Fact is the club lack any young halfbacks ready for the step up so they had to buy overseas. You can't always buy British, as you know the game as a whole over here has a problem in producing enough quality players and the Bulls needed a halfback now. The Bulls have made huge efforts to get their junior side back on track and are making headway but it takes years to reap the rewards. As it is James Donaldson and Elliott Whitehead made their debuts last year and look good. There'll be more next season.

I agree entirely.

Things are getting better. Both Saints and Leeds have very progressive youth policies. Bradford are trying, but lag behind.

I think if you're successful it easier to attracted the best youth talent when you have a successful club.

Bradford are in a bit of a downward spiral at the moment and need to do something to pull themselves out of it. They can no longer compete with clubs like Warrington, who can afford to pay large transfer fees for players like Myler.

I'm sure that if Bradford had the money or were successful they would be in for players like Tomkins, Myler or Eastmond.

I'm not over the moon about Orford's signing. However, there's no youth team player breaking through in the halves, so the only alternative would be to buy a British player they would attracted, like Long, stick with Deacon or sign an overseas players.

I hope it's a stop-gap signing for a couple of years until we produce a home-grown product ourselves.

Shocking Maurice Lindsay-esque signing given the money involved. If Bradford continue to decline at their current rate they will seriously struggle to have their license renewed in 2015.

shewin and mgoldrick at Cas are both them size contracts all top earners are on that money.

Burgessuses surely???!!!!

come next season, will it be the bradford sea eagles .

They have been in SL for 13 years, it is very poor future proofing to say that they don't have someone to step up. This is another area we are massively behind. Take a look at the Melbourne Storm and how many star players they have lost over the last 4 years. Did they go out and buy from another club or England? No they had players ready to step up when needed. I can guarantee they are already grooming some 16 year old fullback ready for when Slater leaves. It is an abject failure on Bradford's part that they HAD to go out and sign a 32 year old from the NRL.