in the 15 years prior to the SC we saw 5 different champions. In the 15 years since we have seen 4.

And you totally missed what I posted about youth players and hull clubs starting to bring youth players through. Throwing them all in together is suicide and not good for confidence getting beat every week. The only guilty part on my teams part is paying over the odds in the past on over rated overseas

Maybe that was more to do with no relegation so some clubs spent less (didn't care) as they were cosy in SL.

I don't like the idea.

Only 2/3 clubs will use it and other clubs could gamble on this for a short term fix and this will then affect how much they are putting into their academies.

Also, who will this attract? The elite players won't come so it seems utterly pointless to me.

Is this definitely the rule being brought in?

I'd be surprised if it doesn't turn into a Mexican standoff

It's not just about attendances though is it? It's about profile.

SL at the moment lacks stars. Joe public would probably struggle to name any current player, Tomkins was probably the only one, but he left.

We need to retain our top talent and sign quality from elsewhere. This isn't just attendances, but profile - which leads to bigger sponsorship, tv audiences, corporate sales, alsorts. We're obsessed with stadium attendances.

Stars gain the interest of the casual observer.

No details given yet, but you would hope they actually voted on a firm set of rules/conditions. They were just the last things that I read.

Surly is the majority of clubs voted it in, then the majority of clubs will benefit from it?

Why should our poorest clubs holding back the ones that are well run?

Don't think marquee players will enhance the profile of our sport in the daily papers.

We didn't have P+R or franchising for the totality of either of those periods so pretty much certainly not. We have had more different finalists as a full time sport without P+R and with an SC than we did as an SC sport with P+R.

Though the idea clubs though 'oh heck I might be relegated that means I should probably try and win a championship' is pretty ludicrous without the stats showing it so.

Define well run though? Are Wigan well run? Over the SL era they've lost their main asset and are now at the whim of their local football team. Are Saints well run? Saddled with debts and reliant on the current board for hand outs. Are Salford well run? A poor youth system, a poor side, poor crowds and completely reliant on one man who has several times been on the verge of pulling out.

Why are we all obsessed with handicapping every club to the same level? We should all be aiming to match the top team, not dragging everyone down to the bottom team! The sport will never grow until attitudes change

Knowing our luck of late, we'll sign Inglis on 500k a year and he will break his leg after 10 minutes.

Wigan fans and the salary cap. Brick wall. It was because of Wigan a cap was brought in in the first place.

Exactly.

We seem obsessed with having a league whereby every team is a similar standard, even though the quality at the top end has gone downhill in recent seasons.

If teams can't afford it, tough.

It's not asif this rule will allow clubs to 'do a wigan'.

Voted in 8-4.

Very pleased with this. Hopefully it will go some way to either stopping top British talent automatically leaving for the NRL and will help us bring in the calibre of NRL talent we used to be able to attract when the salary cap of the NRL was closer to that of SL and the pound was stronger. Looking forward to seeing what happens now! As someone else already mentioned some of the smaller clubs may even benefit by being able to sign players from top SL clubs who weren't made the marquee player. I'd like to see the RFL allow smaller clubs to sell their marquee spot as well if they can't afford to use it.

The salary cap wasn't put in place because of Wigan alone, it was there cap all clubs spend and also to attempt to prevent bankruptcy. Wigan struggled to get down to the current level due to existing contracts in the early 2000s. Here are the objectives of the cap, I'm not sure how limiting a players wage is protecting their welfare though. What's also interesting is that any benefit is captured, a testimonial year could ruin a clubs cap... And then there's references to EBTs, they kind of died a while ago when HMRC clamped down on them. www.therfl.co.uk/the-rfl/rules/i ... section=E1

The salary cap wasn't put in place because of Wigan alone, it was there cap all clubs spend and also to attempt to prevent bankruptcy. Wigan struggled to get down to the current level due to existing contracts in the early 2000s. Here are the objectives of the cap, I'm not sure how limiting a players wage is protecting their welfare though. What's also interesting is that any benefit is captured, a testimonial year could ruin a clubs cap... And then there's references to EBTs, they kind of died a while ago when HMRC clamped down on them. www.therfl.co.uk/the-rfl/rules/i ... section=E1

You think "I Hate Pies" is a Wigan fan? Odd choice of name.

According to the SL website, clubs will only be able to sign a marquee player if they meet certain affordability criteria. This could rule out half the clubs in SL from the start.

So effectively it exempts any salary over £100k for one club-trained player or over £175k for one non club-trained player from the cap?

Not going to make that much difference then, is it? How many clubs are spending or will spend more than 10% of their cap on just one overseas player?

Depends how good the player is? Using 10% of your SC on a Weller Hauraki would be daft. 10% of the SC on a Cooper Cronk could be decent value?

At the moment, signing a Cooper Cronk would take up a lot more than 10% of the cap, so wouldn't be that worthwhile.

Paying weller hauraki whatever he's getting paid at the moment, is daft.

Think there will be a fair few in SL at and around the 175-200k level.

What I don't get about this is that the main reasons quoted are:

1 - To keep young talented British players in SL
2 - To stop the player drain to the NRL
3 - To stop talented RL players from joining RU

But how does it do that? Clubs now get all fired up and go sign a big marquee, SL enhancing superstar. Warrington sign Cronk to solve their halfback problems. Best player in SL. Awesome. Then Steffan Ratchford decides the £1m per season from Union is a better idea, Warrington are now powerless again. Chris Hill decides the extra coin from the NRL is worth losing his Sunday stroll around Orford Park and again Warrington are powerless.

Are we just going to see clubs like Wigan and Salford applying to have more than one marquee player, say quoting exceptional circumstances?



'As well as'. Either or surely?

Another interesting element is



Surely to god no clubs other than Leeds and Warrington would pass any sort of financial sensibility checks? Salford? Pah!

Another thing to check is staged contracts. For example. Player A signs from the NRL season 1, for £1.5m first season, with £200k a year after that. He's marquee player that first season, then next season the club signs player B and he becomes marquee. Is that allowed?