So if we assume it's one home grown player, what happens if Joe Mellor (Or whoever) comes through and plays like Alex Murphy next season? Does he move to Saracens or do Wigan apply again?

We then either have a smaller squad, or he goes to Saracens.

no......cos clubs now have extra cash to bump up other contracts

If you ask me the best the question is exactly who decides 'Marquee'.
As an example (please dont shoot me down as I know we(HKR) have to many Aussies) would Willie mason have counted?
It would have very likely have kept him away from Frence RU if money was no object!
The RFL have made the SC rules have fuzzy lines as exactly what is right and wrong IMHO.

the marquee player has to be english (or qualified for england RL) or else theres absolutely no point having it

So the RFL have changed the Salary Cap rules to allow clubs to pay extra to certain ' long serving , Marquee , home produced ' players

But they haven't actually announced it

Happened a few years ago, they had a young lad named Ashton (whatever happened to him

) who chased the cash.

What happened when he left, easy, they found Tomkins.


Similar to Saints losing Eastmond, replaced from within there own.

We shouldnt be having to have these payments/cap exemptions although i believe the make up of the cap should be looked at and certains concessions allowed for fully developed club players etc.



As for the central contracts, weve been down this road before, Saints go one for Cunningham, Wigan for Radlinski and Leeds, Bulls and Wire too IIRC, but once FC applied for one for Richard Horne , we were told they scrapped them

I understand a lot of the reasons for complaints about this deal, but Sam Tomkins is (like it or not) the best poster-boy RL has in England. Losing him would have been a major blow to the credibility of RL, with it increasibngly seen as a feeder to RU. This may not be the best long-term solution, but as a stop-gap to prevent him going, its a very good move.

We aren't like the NRL, we don't produce players of this calibre that often - someone mentioned Ashton, but Sam Tomkins is miles better than Ashton ever was (or is ever likely to be). We simply can't afford real stars to leave.

The difference between the Union and NRL defections is often positional. Union targets outside backs, NRL targets forwards. Until someone like Tomkins goes to the NRL and stars, I suspect no NRL club would look that seriously at signing any SL backs - at least not for big money. The stars who go to the NRL will be those that really want the challenge and are willing to take a pay cut (at least until they prove themselves).

They lost a winger and gained a fullback/stand off. In the 4 years between Ashton leaving we have seen Wigan employing both Amos Roberts and Pat Richards, as well as George Carmont, Cameron Phelps.

Yet next season we will see Tim Smith, Isaak Johns, Jarrod Sammut, Ben Jeffries, Brett Seymour, Sam Obst, Mick Dobson, Blake Green, Micheal Witt, Craig Gower, Joel Moon, Daniel Holdsworth, Anthony Watts, Brett Finch with SL contracts. We can talk about how we are replacing young English half-backs with the quality of Eastmond when we arent seeing a league that needs 15 of 26 halfback spots filled by overseas players.

Has anything new actually been announced or is it merely a newspaper getting carried away?
There are after all, existing exemptions for long serving and homegrown players in the salary cap rules.

It's a direct quote from Ian Leneghan.

What the RFL have done with the Operational Rules we shall have to wait and see, but the 2011 version is devilishly detailed and I doubt therefore that there will be any particular ambiguities in the 2012 version either.

The existing concession is up to a maximum of £50,000. I can't see that being hugely exceeded. But it's a tough call. On the one hand, you want to try to maintain something at least vaguely like a level playing field (though one or two clubs have found some wonderful downhill bits); on the other, the fact is that SL/RFL simply [ihad[/i to act and do something, given the sudden increase in wealth and funding of both NRL and RU clubs, to at least give clubs a chance of keeping the best players playing within SL.

The bit that's quoted by the OP isn't a direct quote is it? The article that the OP links to has obviously been changed and like I say there is already a £50,000 exemption for long serving players and a £50,000 exemption for homegrown players.

That's true, there is the £50K "club trained" allowance too; I wonder whether perhaps they are simply going to introduce a third category of marquee player? If so, then by analogy with the existing rules there would be no mystery about it, nor any difficulty; there would likely be just one, at any given time, and it would be whichever one the club registered as such with the RFL. So in Wigan's case, they would just register Tomkins as their nominated marquee player and whatever the salary cap allowance would be would apply to him. This would mean that each club could nominate a marquee player, (though would not have to) and that player would not have to have any particular qualifications to be nominated. By restricting it to one player, this would ensure that the extra money was paid just to one player, and not just used to increase the salary cap payments across the board.

They never announce these controversial changes. They slip them into the OR's very smoothly. No-one reads the OR's do they?



"Hello, it is I, L'Eclaire . . . ."

' What the RFL have done with the OR , we shall have to wait and see ' ?

Surely on something as major as changes to the Salary Cap , they should have announced them first before using them ?

Sam could have been promised the cash for a couple of months while things were sorted and then announced ,

Cart leading the horse ' again '

But Sam Tomkins doesn't qualify for any of the current allowances.

It will be interesting to see what teams do with the new allowances anyway. My suspicion is that a few will use it to shoehorn a further NRL signing into their cap.

Er, which would be exactly why "Lenagan revealed Wigan have taken advantage of amendments... "!


I suppose they could restrict it to just any player who is qualified to play for England, as if it can be used to drain a player from Aus [iinto[/i England that doesn't make much sense, [iif[/i the objective is to help prevent players [ileaving[/i SL.

the single most obvious thing is that Wigan no longer feel the salary cap applies to them, Lenegan has stated "I am confident that, for the right person, we are able to offer a more attractive package than any club in either code", so in effect, he believes he can buy anyone he wants.

Or not. Since Wigan are the first to take advantage of the new amendment, having used it on Tomkins, they are now the [ionly[/i SL club who can NOT spend any more extra on a marquee player (since there can be only one). So I am confident that pretty much [ievery[/i SL club, and Onion clubs for that matter, can offer a more attractive package than Wigan for 2012 signings.

But well done Wigan for moving quickly and retaining Tomkins.

have you heard the noise coming from you lot. if there has been an amendement in salary cap that will apply for all teams in the league not just wigan. Mr leneghan is allways transparent to the Rfl in all hes doing to the point when wigan make a bid for a player he sends the proposal straight to the RFL something which most clubs don't. All the teams in the league should be happy that the RFL have woken up even if it was a wigan stick what proded them. Salford have felt they have had there talent poached off them be warrington well now there should be no complaining

The SL clubs will have been involved in agreeing the new SC rules so will know all about them. Why does there need to be an announcement?

When the 2012 Op Rules are published on the RFL website everyone can scrutinise them as much as they like.

because we bought Richie Myler off them?

A lad from Widnes...... hardly poaching is it.

95% of games at FB for Wigan

He left end of 2007, Tomkins debuted in 08 and SL in 09 iirc

Although not directly replacing him straight away, im just saying Ashtons departure allowed the aiding of Tomkins development.

Over the past few years they have allowed Robinson, Brown, Aspinwall and a few others to leave which has allowed them to bring youngsters through.

I am in total agreement with you that its not poaching and its the same situation with ratchy as hes a wiganer but some salford fans dont agree but surely with the new rules this can prevent this? If it doesn't then they can blame the club.