I don't think you were saying the same thing when you lost Gregory to Wigan, Harris to Leeds and Scully to Saints?
FWIW I do agree that transfer fees did/do help some clubs to survive or reinvest.

And I do agree with Smith that 19 is too young to make a permanent decision on a player. Personally I would go back to U18's and U21's (with three overage players allowed in the U21's)
I know there is a cost to it, but it's a hit that the game needs to take, and maybe one of those age groups could be centrally funded.

I think may be there isn't as much talent available in Oz as we are led to believe these days who want to play RL ,especially when our top players are being head hunted by NRL clubs.

I can't work out whats going on in Australia these days. Having followed the Aussie media coverage recently in cricket, despite their success in this Ashes series, there is a general atmosphere of concern in Aussie cricket that the game is losing its status. Most Aussie cricket fans put Test cricket as the pinnacle and are not happy about Big Bash league and 20/20 cricket and the focus on making the game short and accessible to a 'new audience' but Cricket Australia says the game has to do that to compete because all the talented young athletes are being lost to the "codes of football" that offer more glamour, money and celebrity.

So either AFL is really monopolising Australia now or something isn't true.