That was instead of council maintaining ground, which they were legally obliged to for twenty odd years. They didn't give us anything just bought themselves out of that obligation and probably for less than the maintenance would have cost.

Paying players more would not make them superstars. Superstars are made by media exposure which is unrelated to salaries.



No one is being held back. Paying players more wont make them better. Playing in competitive matches week in, week out, having to perform every week without being able to coast through games in first gear would make players better. The NRL, with their salary cap, are closer to this than we are and their players are better than ours.

Oh, and what decline?

We've had 4 different league winners in 4 years. Saints 08, Leeds 09, Wigan 10 and Wire 11. I'd say its slowly working

Paying players more money doesn't make them better players! We have lost what? 6 or 7 players to NRL or RU in the last two seasons, not like it is a massive impact.

I'd rather see a league where at the start of the season every team has a chance of winning it and we have different GF'ists every year (and every team is solvent) ala NRL than a league with a handful of massively paid superstars and only 2 or 3 teams have a cat in hells chance of winning silverware.

Thats almost wilfully missing the point though isnt it.

Whilst paying Danny Mcguire more probably wont be a better player if he is paid more, it does mean that the players leeds can attract to play with Danny Mcguire will be better, which means Danny Mcguire will be playing with and against a better quality of player, and as the logic behind it being a positive that the likes of Graham, Ellis, Burgess et al going to Aus states, playing with and against better players will make Danny Mcguire a better player.

Paying players more only improves the quality of players at one club - the one that can afford to pay their players more than anyone else. It doesn't improve the player pool and reduces the quality of the opposition by making it harder for them to keep their best players. As you quite rightly say Danny Mcguire needs to play with and against better quality players to make him a better player.

This applies to every player in Super League. The more competitive games, the more teams performing at the same level, the more they will push each other to higher levels. The teams who aren't competitive at the moment are the ones who cannot afford to spend the full cap. Removal or raising the cap will increase the number of uncompetitive teams, uncompetitive games and reduce the quality of players as the best players will be able to cruise through more games each season.

That clearly isnt true. It obviously improves the quality at any club which can afford to pay more than the current SC. Again, that simply isnt true. It does improve the player pool because it opens up opportunities to go for a better quality player. Leeds replacing Brett Delany with Greg Inglis improves the player pool in this country. There are clear and obvious other ways for us to limit the potential for a club to 'buy' success. Limits on squad size and make up would limit this as a possibility. And that doesnt come from players like Brett Delany, or Kylie Luelai. It would come from Matt Cooper or Petero Civoneceva.

You seem to have mistaken competitiveness, for quality. Kallum Watkins wont learn to be a better player by simply playing in a competitive league, he needs to play in a league which is competitive because it is high quality. The Championship is a fairly competitive league but Watkins isnt going to improve by playing in it because he still wont need to push himself. Making squads worse wont make individuals better. The lowering quality of the league in the name of competitiveness wont produce better players, it will produce worse players. The competitive aspect of it is only relevant when clubs are needing to push the boundries, where doing something new or different or better is needed to make that break. The race to the bottom created buy the SC doesnt create that environment, it creates an environment were squads are getting worse, they have more weaknesses to exploit and as such those weaknesses become easier for the talented individual exploit not harder.
How is Watkins supposed to learn how to beat Greg Inglis when he spends the year playing against George Carmont and Francis Meli?

The same argument which says it is a good thing James Graham is leaving to test himself in Australia simply highlights the folly of chasing competitiveness at the expense of quality.

No competitiveness drives quality. Without that competition there is nothing to drive up standards. Without that competition we will never develop a Greg Inglis and if he were to come over here he would soon become less of a player as he would be coasting through most games.

No, you have it backwards, quality drives competitiveness. Greg Inglis had to become the player he is because of the players he faces, not because he plays in a competitive league. He has to be that bit stronger, that bit faster, have that bit better ball handling, he has to learn that offload, practice those kick catches not because the league he plays in is competitive but because the players he plays against are that bit stronger, that bit faster, have that bit better ball handling, can learn that offload and catch that kick and if he cant do that then he gets left behind.

Making cuts elsewhere, making his halfback a bit worse, or his pack a bit weaker doesnt make Inglis a better player, playing with and against quality does.

If Inglis was playing behind a beaten pack but against a player the quality of Cameron Phelps he is going to be coasting anyway, he would have a harder time playing behind a dominant pack against the like of Tahu.

Yes. Because week in, week out, he faces players who are at a competitive level. To be the best he has to be that bit better than them and he has to be better consistently. Unlike over here where most weeks he would be facing players he could best with ease and that would see his skills decline. That is our problem and that problem can only be resolved by making the league more competitive. That will, in turn, drive up the quality of the players.

He has to be a bit better than the best players in the world, he has to be better than high quality players. This race to the bottom created by the SC does the opposite, it means Kallum Watkins only has to be better than some pretty average players which makes it more difficult for him to realise his potential. Kallum Watkins doesnt know what its like to play against a high quality centre, he doesnt know how to beat an NRL level defence, he doesnt know how to defend against an Inglis, Hodges, Tahu etc because he never has to do it. He is learning how to exploit a poor defence, when to see a poor read, he is only learning what he needs to do to beat a Jake Webster and thats why it is stopping him becoming the player he could be.

PLaying with and against a poorer standard of player doesnt make you a better one.

Yup, which is why we need the salary cap to bring up the quality of the whole league. Not get rid of it to reduce competition and thus reduce the overall quality of the league. The league only becomes better as a whole which is where we are behind the NRL (who have a salary cap).

The salary doesnt bring up the quality of the league as a whole, it brings down the quality at the top. And getting rid of it would improve the quality at the top.

The salary cap increases quality by increasing competition, the driver of quality. Removing the cap would reduce competition resulting in a reduction in quality. Although removing the cap would make the relative quality of the top (or rich) teams better when compared to the other teams whilst reducing quality in absolute terms.

No, again you have it backwards. Removing the cap would make the absolute quality improve, that much is obvious, bringing in and keeping better players makes for better teams and better games and a better quality.

The SC reduces quality at the top and stops the top improving at the level it naturally would. It reduces quality in both relative terms (not necessarily a bad thing) and absolute terms (always a bad thing).

If smaller clubs cant compete, well they shouldnt really be in the same competition should they?

As you already said it is playing against quality players that improves the quality of players. Therefore you need quality throughout the league in order to improve overall quality. With inequality the quality of players will reduce.



Paying players more does not improve quality. The salary cap does nothing to reduce quality but does increase competition which drives up quality. The top teams can, and do, improve without increasing wages.



I'm not sure a one team competition would be that interesting though. We try to take money out of the equation so clubs focus on other ways to improve than throwing money at the best players. Instead they must work on youth development, fitness, tactics and innovations in these and other areas in order to be the best.

equality does not equal quality.
You can persist with this red herring if you want but it has already been addressed. Paying the same player more doesnt improve that player but being able to pay more means you are able to attract a better quality of player which clearly and obviously does improve the league.

Why would we only have a one team competition? do we only have 17 quality players in Rugby League? of course not, it is nonsense for you to suggest only one team would be competitive. And we can work all we like on youth development, fitness, tactics and innovations but it makes not a jot of difference when the best rugby players arent playing SL. Our 3 best forwards arent playing in SL but we are employing distinctly average players like Korkidas and Lovegrove, We have lost Chris Ashton to RU yet can find a place for Semi Tadulala. By taking money out of the equation we take ourselves out of the equation when in the market for the best rugby players. The effort we need to be putting in to youth development, fitness, tactics and innovations is only enough to win a lower quality league which doesnt contain the best players.

We have finally seen the cap equalise the competition to a point where we finished with five teams that had a realistic chance of winning the final, and you would want to take that away?!

I don't believe cap restrictions are costing us players. Lack of money in the game may well be, but not the cap. As our competition equalises, as we get to the point that any team can win on any day, it ultimately becomes more attractive to spectators, viewers and sponsors. As that starts to happen, that's when the money comes in, and the cap can rise.
But lift the cap now, and make an SL where three quarters of the league are cannon fodder feeder clubs for the rest, and that will never happen.

And who were the 4 teams that finished above them? Warrington, St Helens, Wigan and Huddersfield arent struggling for money, Leeds arent competing with them because of the SC and they cant only compete with Leeds because of the SC.

Three quarters of the League arent cannon fodder, a small minority is, Leeds, Saints, Wigan, Wire, Hudds, Les Catalans, Hull FC, could all comfortably spend more, thats half the league right there, then you have the likes of Bradfor and Hull KR, who arent rolling money but arent out with begging bowls either. Add in Widnes with their backing from O'connor and we have 10 of 14 clubs able to compete in a non SC world. The 4 clubs left are 4 clubs who cant spend the SC even now, we cant hold our game back waiting for those clubs to catch up.

Besides, there is no law that means because a club can spend more, it has to.

I didn't say three quarters of the league are cannon fodder. I said they would be if we removed the salary cap.

I think you over estimate the wealth of Catalans and Hull, and forget that Huddersfield and Warrington are very dependant on their owners, which is not sustainable. The rest would be even further behind if we removed the salary cap.

I can't understand why you still can't see the affect the salary cap has had in spreading talent around the league.



With no cap in place, they would have to, to be able to compete.

Once again, who exactly are you arguing with? Nobody, as far as I can tell is saying have NO cap in place. The OP asked a question about an increase, and I've suggested restructuring it so that it's focused mainly on turnover and tough squad limits.

Is that discussion unreasonable? Are you convinced that we've got the cap exactly right as it stands? For that matter, taking your logic - is it not too high already? If you think the cap equalizes competition and improves standards, why not lower it to the level the weakest club can afford?

Your argument that equalizing competition and raising standards go hand in hand is nonsense. There's practically no correlation. You can pick examples in sports all over world 'supporting' one side of the argument or the other. The primary driver for high standards is a limited number of berths in the top competition and a large pool of players very keen to win those berths. The better that ratio, the higher the standard. We'll only genuinely improve standards by increasing that pool of players clamouring for the top berths and I'm afraid that possible fame and (limited) fortune play a major role in inspiring people to fight for those places.

I play cricket in a very tight league - this year, with 3 games left, any team could have been relegated or promoted. But guess what? The standard is universally s**te.

There was one year when my skills (and motivation for that matter) improved a lot (in my case from worse-to-bad, but hey). We had a pro in the side from Indian first-class cricket who taught us a lot and inspired us to improve. We got the most out of it because he was at our nets 3 times a week, but in a small way, other players in other teams got the chance to bowl at a top-class batsman, and learned that some (most) of the stuff you get away with bowling at amateurs doesn't work at a higher level. Hopefully this had a small improvement on them as bowlers. Guess what? Other teams whined about it. They were perfectly entitled to have a pro too, but couldn't afford it. ( In fact, neither could we, we were very lucky that the guy was in England to work that summer on some other cricket-based scheme and we happened to be the nearest club - he played for free). Equality? No. A small contribution to improving standards? Definitely.

To make the game more successful and widely known we need more general advertising and making more cap space available to encourage any up and coming athlete to choose rugby league as their sport so putting an increasingly entertaining product onto the field,
Let the richer clubs spend more money on their cap say up to a mamimum of £500,000 on the condition that every £1 spent an equal amount is given to the RFL towards their advertising campaigns to promote the game.

Pretty much agree. Personally I'd like it to be more robustly structured so that any extra (say your £500k) was specifically only used to fund 'superstars' not to just beef up the squad with mulitple mediocre players.

All you have to do is look at all those bankrupt, skint sporting clubs in USA. Strangely enough American Football, hockey, basketball and baseball all operate within a cap.

If we move away from RL and just look at Business as a whole, we find that the most creative and successful business sectors tend to be those were there are a significant number of similarly sized organisations able to compete on a mainly even keel with each other. This drives them to look at all possible avenues to move their business forward.

Now compare those business sectors to those that have a single or limited number of all powerful near monopolistic suppliers. What you see then is an organisation that moves at a much slower pace.

With the Salary cap the aim is to create a dynamic internal playing market, one that will create coaches who wont win the league by buying the talent but will win it by developing players and creating innovative systems to keep ahead of the rest. Players themselves wont be able to merely overun opponents they will have to work hard on developing their game and playing at the best of their ability. Examples of this are the NFL, NRL, NBA.
These sports enjoy huge popularity and get massive TV ratings

Now look at the monopolistic league with no salary cap and one or two all powerful clubs. With this there is no need to develop players and innovate on and off the pitch, all that matters is the wealth to buy up anyone that may threaten your hegemony. The end result is a league with a small cadre of talented players all with one or two clubs, and low playing standards because those talented players dont even need to break sweat to win games. The classic examples of this are the Scottish Premier League and Rugby League in the mid 1980's to mid 1990's. These sports become regarded as jokes and see a decline in popularity and TV ratings.