firstly hindsight is a wonderful thing we didn't sign flops deliberately, secondly Ashton was offered a very good deal for a young lad and paying him substantially more than his peers would at best damage team morale and at worst set a chain in motion with all our young lads trying to get offers from union in order to talk their value up, wouldn't be too tricky for some of them. We were hardly world beaters when Ashton was at the club, we had some tremendous performances from him personally and some poor ones too, he seemed to have a bit of an attitude problem which Northampton Saints discovered when he was in his 2nd season for them, he was great in the first year when all was going good for him. Could we really afford the risk of being 3 men down on the squad to accommodate him? doubtful! 3 years on we are Super League Champs with Sam, Richards and Roberts (for a short period due to injury) all among the best fullbacks in Super League, Chris Ashton would not have made the slightest difference to our teams performances under Noble and we're managing to move on from the days of one or two players earning a fortune and have a large squad of players the vast majority of whom (as Sinfield described the Leeds side on SL supermen) play for the club they love regardless of the fact they could well earn more money elsewhere.

Perhaps if St Helens hadn't decided to pay Eastmond a fortune to keep him 'loyal' you may well have had a larger squad and been able to cope with the injuries you've been moaning about all season.

If anyone demands a massive wage increase to stop them going to union let them go, if the club's youth system is good enough they will produce more players who will learn through excellent team spirit and motivation that they're playing for their teammates, fans and managers, not just for the money.

Good idea mate companies like Aviva,Heineken,Zurich,Guinness and 02 would be a start.

getting on a lucazade add or i think its jessica ennis on a powerade add at the minute, we could have players doing similar, thing like this.

however it is a wierd cross over, its actually the job of the the players agent to sort these things out, however with rugby league the way it is, we could really do with the marketing and press officers at the RFL pulling some strings.

Getting players on soccer am ( i think burgess was the last about 2 years ago!) and on some kind of TV programme e.g. stirckly come dancing or saturday kitchen, they might come across cheesy but at least the faces and names are out and about, their must be some bad celebrity game show, charity thing we could get the lads on like come dine with me, I don't know half of them on those programmes so they can't be that fussy.

I'm pretty sure the RFU have these tatics especially with the dancing/skating thing and other such programmes. When was the last time there was a rugby player that didn't work for the BBC on a question of sport!

alternatively we need one of the lads to go out with some kind of actress/singer and have some dodgey wedding that will devorce in a year? isn't Cheryl Cole avaliable these days.

Thats because he has the face of a rat!!

Maybe they could promote a cosmetic surgen and get worked done while there at it.

I'm a bit confused about this clamour to get rid of the salary cap?.....Would getting rid of it, not just lead to clubs spending money they don't have, on players they can't afford??

You say that clubs would be responsible and wouldn't be so kamikaze with their cash, but didn't we all think that when Widnes went belly up after chasing the dream in the late 80's/early 90's??.....Similarly, Wigan's own glory years eventually cost them their ground and probably set them back 5-10 years, a similar story to my own club, Warrington, who tried in vain to keep up with the big boys and have spent years in the wilderness through poor financial management. Only now, with good management, have we been able to compete in the game and yet, even with Simon Moran's undoubted financial muscle, I would be against the removal of a salary limit, mainly beacsue I fear that ego and ambition might take over clear thinking.

I do believe though that a raising of the actual cap could be a benefit....Surely, thinking logically, as the cost of living goes up, then shouldn't a player's wages??.....It seems to me that the sport's cap has been enduring some sort of pay freeze which needs looking at?