Cue people saying certain clubs dont spend the cap, etc. They should get their s in gear and get people through the gates to get money and generate interest, therefore maybe attracting more people to play creating a bigger pool of talent.

Garbage, lazy clubs are holding our game back

The RFL really need to get with the times and look into things like RU is doing like in the link and stop some of our talent being robbed

Let's hope every one of them goes for a 'marquee player' of Kyle Eastmond's standard.

It would be a toss-up which runs out first - the money or the space on their treatment benches.

In fairness we used to that to them time and time and time and time and time again so we have absolutely no grounds to moan about it. We do need to combat it as best we can though.

Amen to that. If this doesn't set alarm bells ringing at Red Hall then nothing will

That's a bit of a one-sided viewpoint. They needed to up their own SC to stop their own talent-draining problems with French RU, which is uncapped at present

The RFL needs to do something and quickly.

The thing is most RU clubs run at huge losses and cant even afford the wages they are paying at the moment. As a result many RU clubs do not want the salary cap raised. Teams like Exeter, Wasps, Worcester, Sale, Newcastle, Bath, Gloucester are only were they are because of wealthy owners who heavily subsidise them to the tune of millions. Rugby League clubs, bar maybe Warrington, dont have these rich benefators who are prepared to lose millions each year.

The cap is a maximum. Clubs that don't generate their own income streams won't have the money available to spend it, so they need to get their act together, get bums on seats, sell shirts and burgers and maybe then we'll see RL players earning enough not to want to go elsewhere.

Yeh I agree with this to an extent, but there has to be something in place where clubs have the right to keep hold of the players they have spent years developing. People dont want the cap raising so that the rich teams can create a team of super stars while the lower clubs cant compete. Its not fair on the teams producing top class youngsters who then have to either get rid of them or watch on helplessly as they are poached to RU because their hands are tied due to the cap. This is what happened at Melbourne, they were effectively punished because they had developed Slater, Inglis, Smith, Folau, Cronk etc and to pay them what they were worth, they broke the SC.

The talk of "talent distribution" throughout the league is right but it shouldnt be up to only a few teams to develop enough good young players for everyone.

Clubs in the Aviva Premiership will have one player excluded from the cap from 2012.

The cap will increase from £4 to £4.26 with academy credits taking it to the final sum of £4.5

Think the RFL need to pull there thumb out quick.

We need similar guidlines in League asap

The clubs themselves decide if the salary cap should be increased not the RFL

The salary cap needs to be based on what we can afford and what makes it fair for all clubs

But as Ian Lenagan stated at the fan's forum - It should increase in line with inflation. Otherwise it is technically DEcreasing year on year.

Trouble is, the little and/or poor clubs keep voting against any increase.

This will eventually kill the sport

Yet again, the big clubs (Wigan, Warrington, Saints, Leeds, Hull, Hull KR, Huddersfield) are the top clubs. With the cream of the British game coming from it. I bet you could pick a whole England squad from those teams and it would be very competitive.

However, clubs like (Castleford, Wakefield, Crusaders, Harlequins, Bradford) are all doing poorly. They generally have poor stadiums, poor squads, poor games, and ultimately poor crowds.

I think it is time for the RFL to realise this and make it so that the teams with big attendances and strong youth developments can be helped. And the teams with poor attendances and poor youth systems can be let free.

You're right. This is outrageous. If the boot was on the other foot, you'd never catch Rugby League consistently buying young Union players from say Wales for over 100 years or anything.

Boston, Sullivan, Quinnell, Gibbs, Davies, Young, Devereux, Bateman, Tatupu, Botica, Gallagher, Innes, Offiah...

best there was

best what?

And didn't IL mention a new rule about Union players wouldn't count on the cap for their first season in league?

Union people always complained to me about RL taking their best players, which we did for the most part. My reply was that it was up to them to sort their problem out.
With circumstances reversed my feelings are the same, if RL now has a problem it is up to us to sort it out. Don't blame Union!

Down Under, Gallop admitted that after the Canterbury and Melbourne cap scandals the system had failed and they were looking to replace the cap with a better system which would be transparent as well as take their game forward.
We should do the same and quickly. What we don't need is ending up adopting an NRL system into SL as a panic measure as we haven't worked out something better than the SC for ourselves.

tuigamala..george fairburn?

The great players who changed and broke away from the Union in 1895 were all "former" Union players.
Never knock Union players who change to League, it was they who started it all!

Suppose we removed the SC completely. What would happen to the clubs, the league, and the players? How would that impact on international player movement?

Never seen a post with so many people panicking that this cap is all about English Club sides coming and taking SL players. This new cap is done to counteract what the French are doing. The increase will mainy go to the players in union now. With the Marquee player already in the club side. English rugby and Welsh have seen a few players go to French club sides over the last few years. Look at Willie Mason he get sniff of a pay cheque and disgraced himself at Hull.

Even with the increas in the NRL next season Mason still went to France and that itself tells you where the biggest pay is in Rugby of either code. So stop panicking calm down and please understand that not everything union does is aimed at Rugby League talent after all apart from Jason Robinson not many have made been a great signning for English Rugby. Faz even did not have the impact that most predicted. Though Ashton is going well he went early enough in his career.

Though i do agree with the marquee signning and defenitely any player from 16/18 upwards who makes it as a regular first team player should cost less than a player clubs sign. Maybe it could be like a percentage for every season a player stays at the club. Say 10% a season so after 10 years it will cost a club nothing and that rewards clubs who produce talent rather than waits for cast offs from the clubs who produced good youg talent.

The point you miss, no doubt deliberately, is that in order to earn a living from sport those Welsh players you mention had no option but to come and play RL. If they could have made a career out of RU in the valley's I am sure they would have done, as they can and do now.

The situations are completely different where now we have a cash rich professional sport RU in a professional era seemingly unable to produce it's own talent. If they do come looking at RL talent it's a pretty sad state of affairs given we are constantly told the games are so different and all the other baloney that surrounds RU.

Thus bit of the article struck me as something we should be doing as a sport:

"Clubs will get a credit in the salary cap of £30,000 per player, up to eight players, for home-grown talent in their senior squads "

We already have the home grown rule to try and get clubs to develop their own players and maybe the RFL think compelling clubs to have a certain number of home grown players means no financial incentive is required. I would disagree if that was their logic because such an incentive would not only help retain players but could actually reduce the costs clubs face at least in the short term as it must be cheaper to bring players through than try and sign even over the hill Aussies.

It doesn't need to be 8 players but if we went to say 5 that is only £150K a year on the cap and given it's been stuck at the current level for several years that would be a really good way to increase it few could argue against. In other words any "poor" clubs who automatically vote cap increases down would look pretty stupid voting against a measure to promote youth in the game so it might be easier to get through the flat earth brigade.

If we can't afford to increase the cap by £150K for a scheme like this we should give up the pretense of being a professional sport and revert back to being semi-pro tomorrow.