The factors that make Catalans a fearsome prospect on their own ground seem to operate against them when they play away. Were they to make top 4 they might be a threat under the new system; unfortunately for them, that system heavily militates against their even reaching the play offs. Cup-wise, a decent draw could see another final appearance, as it can for quite a few clubs.

Well of course they weren't. What a ludicrous supposition to make that they somehow should have been.

Why would some of the best players in the world want to uproot their families and move halfway across the planet to play in relegation dogfights in front of 3,000 people? The best players will always gravitate towards the biggest clubs, salary cap or no salary cap. Saints, Leeds and Wigan had more to offer those players than just the size of their wage packet

What the SC does prevent though is cases where one club hugely inflates the wage/transfer market to the point where only they are able to afford the best players. Imagine if Simon Moran suddenly decided in a non-capped sport that he was going to sign the best 25 players currently in SL and pay them £200k a year each, and damn the financial losses because he's rich enough to cover it. You've then got 11 other clubs in the competition in an arms race that they can't win because they're not backed by a multi-millionaire who is determined to be the best at all costs. Meanwhile, there are half a dozen internationals sat kicking their heels in the stands at the HJ every week because they can't get in the team, much like there used to be at Wigan in the pre-cap days.

get rid of the salary cap, it obviously doesn't work. Let Marwan spend huge amounts and let him buy the league leaders shield. it will improve the league. 1 up one down in a 12 team SL, no 3 x 8's. 4 team play-off. Week 1 1 v 2 + 3 v 4. Week 2 winners of 3 v 4 away to loser of 1 v 2. Week 3 Grand Final.

thats why the SC entrenched success. Because the best players gravitate towards the big clubs and it stops smaller clubs catching up.

When Koukash took over Salford he took over a club where the few good youngsters they have produced were picked off, a development system in disarray, a poor first team squad and he was expected to build a good squad whilst a) being an unattractive proposition as a club, b) spending less that their rivals, c)getting less for the money they do spend, and d) not having a very good squad to start with.

Your second paragraph does highlight a potential issue with an SC free world, but not only is it an SC free world but an entirely squad regulation free world. For instance, you could put in a rule that says at least 10 of your 25 man squad have to have made their SL debut for you, or only 10 could have played for any other SL side or NRL side. There are plenty of other hammers to crack that nut that don't put the responsibility on the players to earn less.

I'm also not convinced that such domination would be possible again. There isn't much difference between the top 5 in each position in SL so even if one club did sign what they believed to be the best 25 players, that they would be hugely better. I look at the likes of Leeds Wigan and Saints and I don't think there is a huge amount elsewhere that they are desperately in need of, or that if they got would take them that far away from the others.

Point still stands, Foran is leaving a multi premiership winning team to join wooden spoon cellar dwellers. Why? Money. If the cap is legit I can't believe a mid or lower club can't be offering players from Leeds, Wigan or st's enough money difference to entice them to move. End of day there are only so many top tier earners a club can have if they are sticking to the cap.

Maybe it's because UK players are more loyal to their clubs, and not as mercenary as the Aussies who seem to just chase the money.

My knowledge of the NRL's minimal. Are the cellar dwellers loaded? If so, any player joining up might reasonably expect others of quality to join him. Were Wakey to sign, say, Hardaker, he'd know with certainty they couldn't afford any other top players; in fact the quality of those around him would almost certainly drop as a consequence of his having signed and the cutbacks that that would require.

Salary cap is working, not Leeds Wigan saints fault they produce the best players and attract the best players, Leeds success down to exceptional run club not just spending the most money, bet there are 3-4 clubs trophy less and out off top 4 who spend more money than Leeds.

I think part of the difference is that in the NRL you know there's gonna be turnover in the teams challenging for the play offs. Cronulla went from the wooden spoon in 2014 to finishing 6th in 2015. If players are aware this sort of transformation is possible, the good players are more likely to join bad teams, because there's nothing to indicate they will always be bad teams.

If Michael Ennis was a Super League player, he would have done the equivalent of leaving Wigan at the end of 2014 to join Wakefield. No player over here would do that because what chance did Wakefield have of making the play offs in 2015?

I also think the cap seems a lot harsher over there. I know their cap is much bigger, but so are wages - you hear about clubs having to let go of players because of salary cap pressures a lot more often. Robbie Farah being forced out of Wests, Michael Jennings and Luke Lewis being let go from Penrith, Glenn Stewart and Keiran Foran with Manly. These are all pretty good players who the club would rather have kept, but couldn't justify it under the salary cap. How often do the good Super League clubs have to let some of their good players go just because of the salary cap?

You could scrap the cap but then you would have to implement a rule meaning that clubs were protected from chairpersons who like to gamble.

Saying they are financially astute does not prove anything clubs as independent businesses pose no financial risk to the individual running them, they will just borrow against club assets until the club goes bust.

This is the first year for a while there has been some stability in club finances.

It's like the shampoo. It won't happen overnight but it will happen. (Provided it is properly policed)

Players do leave top clubs to go else where and earn more money. Thornley and Harrison Hansen at Wigan, Aiton at Leeds and going back a few years Calderwood. Josh Jones, Puletua and Flanagan at Saints.

I think job security at the smaller clubs with a history of going bust, and that prize money doesn't count on the cap make players moving to smaller clubs less common.

But what is special about a sports club that distinguishes it from any other business?

Businesses in all walks of life take risks, some work and the business grows, some don't and the business shrinks - that's the whole point of raising capital and having management in place.

It strikes me that the only logical way forward from having an imposed salary cap is to have a single model of finances right across the board for all clubs - yes let's nationalise SuperLeague - come on Mr Corbyn here's a project for you

Simple business are there to make money.
Sports clubs are there to win prizes.

Do tescos care if they get team of the year. Nope. But they do care about making money.

Do sports clubs care about making money. Not so much but they do care about having the best staff and being team of the year.

In football they have so many teams they can afford for 5 or 6 to go bust as others replace them. When Bradford goes bust there was no one to replace them, same with London losing money year on year.

Then you have the lunacy of clubs going bust but fans insisting on them staying in the top.flight.

The basics for rl are we.need more players, more clubs and more fans to pay more money to allow a totally free market.

At the moment it struggles with a semi regulated market.

Sports teams are essentially not for profit. Being well run enables them to spend more money on salaries and stadia if they can, but I'll guarantee there isn't a single owner in SL who expects to do any better than break even. For a number of the owners a manageable loss wouldn't be that bad as it would be used to offset tax liabilities elsewhere - it could even be their aim.

Just a side point from me...

Prestige of Club seems to count heavily towards a bias of young lads veering towards the top four Clubs. While the likes of Leeds and Wigan produce decent youngsters, these youngsters are often from outside of those Clubs local 'influence'. The prestige of these Clubs attracts youngsters. Those that make it are then shown to be products of that Club, and rightly so. Things are made a lot easier for top four Clubs when most young lads are chomping at the bit to play for them. This isn't the fault of those Clubs merely a by product of success, but it shows how uneven it is for lower league teams to attract and retain young lads when faced with the carrot that is a top four team.

Lower teams still face a battle to retain lads that have gone through their system due to the same reason. Looking at my own side Salford, as an example, we've lost the likes of Sneyd, Turner, Fages, Ratchford, Myler (With a nod to Widnes) just in the last few seasons. We'll face a tough battle if Evalds continues on the path he's going to, and a few of the new crop of young lads coming through like Lannon are going to be tough to hold onto. It's nobodies fault that these players want to move on for the chance to win things but it shows how difficult, even after retaining a young lad, it is for lower Clubs to build around homegrown talent.

SL really needs a few other Clubs to win the GF. As the superiority of the top four diminishes, even slightly, it will slowly change the dynamics of youth development and retention and strengthen the competition as a whole. Like others have said though, it's a catch 22 scenario in that there just isn't a catalyst that can get the ball rolling.

Maybe there should be regional academies brought in with a draft pick system to even things out or maybe clubs should be allocated areas where they can sign players from. This would stop the likes of Wigan signing players from Yorkshire and Leeds signing players from the other side of the Pennines. each club could also be allocated a development area where they can sign players from. So Wigan could get the south west and Saints the south east.

If clubs pass on players then they are free to the open market.

I await to be shot down by Leeds/Wigan/Saints fans.

Good post, Butcher. Dunno how accurate the RFL's assessment of the academies is, but there are still clubs apparently not operating at the level they perhaps should be (not a dig at any club as I can't recall whose are deemed satisfactory). that too may be a factor that determines how attractive they are to youngsters. But I accept the premise that the possibility of success is probably the greatest determinant of all.

It's also not just how the academy operates, it's how the club as a whole operates.

It's why I'm very much against a binning of the salary cap because I think, unless clubs drastically increase their income then less needs spending on players wages and more on club infrastructure.

Sort the clubs out off the pitch and they'll succeed on it.

why is that responsibility on the players? why isnt the onus on the fans to pay more or the owners to invest in their businesses?

There is no responsibility on the players. There is responsibility on the clubs as to how much they pay players.

There is nothing stopping owners investing in their businesses. They can invest it in sorely needed areas such as management, marketing, commercial, sports science and training and playing facilities.

They all desperately need financial input. If we don't do that our clubs will never reach a point were they can actually pay their players more.

We currently have Wakefield who at one point this year were only spending roughly a third of the salary cap.
Inflating wages does not help the sport. We cannot compete with Union or the NRL on wages without doubling what we pay our players. Something the richest club in our competition can't afford never mind the rest of the clubs.

Sort our clubs out off the pitch first, then we can raise wages as club incomes rise. You can't do it the other way around without destabilising clubs.

But with regard to growing the game, owners of clubs such as Northampton RU or Bath RU are very unlikely to start an RL venture as part of their club unless they know they will be allowed to spend enough on players to ensure success in League 1, then in the Championship and then in Super League. So, the salary cap has to be scrapped and be replaced by a control based on a club's audited available financial resources; a term that would exclude loans, directors' or otherwise. I.e. Genuinely put money in that you in effect write off without a legal right to get it back, and you can then spend it all on players if you wish.

The way most clubs are run the term "audited available financial resources" would in practice mean that the salary cap value of your players cannot be more than you receive each season in central funding.

But, if any club can show that it has the money to pay players more then it can.

All the game has to show to the outside world (inc HMRC) is that we have a rule that basically says don't pay your players (which are always the biggest expense anyway) more than you can afford.

I'd prefer us to rely on the responsibility of club directors to live within their means and have no controls at all on spending on players. But it reflects badly on the sport (in terms of getting future grants etc) if our clubs keep going bust (even if we do impose a sanction of relegation if it happens).

whatever semantic gymnastics you wish to indulge in wont alter the fact you expect the players to accept less in the hope clubs spend more elsewhere. You expect that the earnings of the players should be the opportunity cost of investment in other areas of the business.

If clubs need financial input that comes from selling their product or it comes from owner investment, it shouldnt come from setting up a cartel to lower employees wages.

Not being able to compete with Union or the NRL or anything else is irrelevant.

There are many many many players who will leave our game with not a lot of money, at a disadvantage to the rest of the workforce in terms of skills and experience, whose bodies are shattered and broken by our game and who will struggle for the rest of their lives. That Wakefield might want pay managers more, or spend more on the club shop is pretty irrelevant to that.

If fans and owners want to see something, they pay for it. Players have no responsibility to earn less so fans and owners dont have to pay as much.

Again, stop being daft just because you don't like the salary cap.

I think players should be paid as much as clubs can afford whilst properly funding other aspects of their business. The problem we have is that there is a highly sought after amount of RL playing talent and so the costs of acquiring that talent (ie wages) can be easily and highly artificially inflated and, due to the low amount of clubs in RL, that inflation can be triggered by just 1 source (eg a Koukash).
That inflation can be hugely destabilising to clubs. We saw it happen in the 80's and 90's where clubs were trying to outdo each other to keep up with Wigan. The problem is this led to 2 of the sports biggest and richest clubs nearly going under in Leeds and Wigan. It took Leeds a decade and Wigan even longer to recover financially. If better, longer term decisions had been made in the 80's and 90's then both Leeds and Wigan would be in better situations now. Wigan could have either redeveloped Central Park or sold it on their own terms and Headingley would have had at least 1 other stand rebuilt by now.

Sports clubs aren't like regular businesses. The mobile phone industry didn't suffer when Nokia struggled/failed despite being previously the industry leader. Their customers don't have anything close to the brand loyalty that sport clubs enjoy. If Leeds go under their fans are largely lost to the sport, they don't go to another club/company.

So our companies/clubs need more protections than regular businesses, especially due to the very limited number of RL clubs.
If Salford pay significantly more than the average then everyone has to eventually. Just because Koukash is prepared to lose millions of pounds a year doesn't mean everyone can or should.
If we had 12 or even 6 Koukash's at our clubs then fine scrap the cap, but we don't. We have owners often benevolently loaning or writing off relatively small amounts of money in order to keep their dream from dying.

Unless you think that RL clubs currently spend enough on and properly prioritise areas such as management, marketing, commercial, sports science etc then those areas need funding more than currently.
I'm all for clubs increasing their turnover, let's do that absolutely, who wouldn't be for that? But I think that money should go into the massively under-invested areas of RL clubs that I've mentioned rather than players wages, which it would if the SC were scrapped.

I know your come back is that why would clubs alter their current business strategy and start losing money.
Well that's pretty simple to answer, because what's the alternative?
The alternative is accept you aren't going to win things. So the choice is:
1 - spend more on players wages to try and compete and rely on winning to make up the financial gap.
2 - reduce spending elsewhere. Club revenues fall and player performance suffers. Again rely on winning to bridge the financial gap.
3 - accept you're not going to compete. Keep spending where it is. Best case scenario an odd flukey win here or there but more likely is reduced club revenue as supporter expectation falls.

The point is, to raise players wages we HAVE to increase club revenues first. There's no magic wand to do that, it means hiring good people into the clubs. That costs money. And they require a budget which also costs money.

The best signings Leeds ever made weren't Kevin Sinfield or Jamie Peacock but Gary Hetherington and Rob Oates. They enabled Leeds to compete on the pitch by sorting it out off the pitch.

Do that at other clubs and they'll thrive too relatively speaking. Then when we've got enough clubs properly resourced and run then we can look at the salary cap and raising players wages. Until then the clubs can't afford to pay them more, even if some would decide to if there were no SC.

On the contrary. They are more likely to invest if they can be confident there will be control over player salaries, and they will not find themselves competing against spiraling uncontrolled wage demands, competing too see who can spend the most on player salaries.