I totally agree, which is why I find it strange some still decide to criticise Wigan for letting him go.

Regards the cap, I think it should be related to a clubs turnover, I do not think it should be limited around what everyone can afford. It should be related to what each individual club can afford.

At a meeting Maurice was asked about Ashton leaving and he said the player was already the highest paid teenage player in SL when he was at Wigan.
I don't think that it was because Wigan couldn't afford him as then Whelan was underwriting all the bills and profit/loss accounting wasn't on the horizon. Simply they wern't prepared to pay Union's kind of money to anyone!

Now Ian Lenagan is running the place profit/loss is a major issue and rightly. Wigan have already lost the battle with Thornley who has gone to Stockport. It hasn't prevented Wigan RL signing a number of younger players on full time contracts the details of whom IL said will be announced soon.

As for the SC. It appears the Aussies are about to ditch theirs in the not too distant future and are to test a new system in 2011. Should that be seen as preferable then it will replace the SC within the next few seasons.
We need to look at a replacement too as ours has been in force for around ten years and hasn't produced the results that were claimed it would.

Is it now Chris Ashton's 4th season playing Rah Rah? First year they'd have been promoted anyway, second year he hardly played, third year he was a star and he seems to be doing ok this year too. If he decides to leave at the end of this year have they really had such brilliant value for money for him?

Re Wigan making a loss when Dave Whelan in charge was how he decided to do his accounts, where shirt sales went, he had his fingers in so many pies and no advantage gained by having Wigan Warriors showing a profit.

Its the same old same old from supporters of the CC.

They point out that RU has a cap - really, I hadn't noticed.

The point about the Union cap of course is that when it was brought in it was presented as a necessary evil rather than an end in itself and the express aim was to raise it as clubs got richer (which they duly did).

Why should SL clubs aim to grow their revenue or make a profit when there is no reward for doing so.

The lack of ambition - in some cases a desire to pay players less, from short sighted clubs wishing to keep wages down and envious fans alike - of the RL cap is breathtaking, but perhaps not as astonishing as the continuing failure of the pro-SC brigade to face up to its problems and the unfairness to the players, who as a whole have seen their wages eroded very significantly by inflation over the last few years.

We were told again and again by the pro-SC fanatics that Wigan fans were only against the CC because it held back Wigan. We're back on top now and its still wrong. Mind you if we stay at the top it won't be long before the Wigan haters, the my club first parochial idiots that hold RL back will set to work changing the cap, if only to find some way to "level the playing field"....

It's not envy - if a cap was based on turnover we'd have been spending more than Wigan, as would some some other clubs.

It seems to have escaped your attention that Wigan made substantial losses last year, even with a salary cap.

If the salary cap was replaced by one linked to turnover and profits, the likes Leeds and Hull would race ahead of Wigan immediately. I have a feeling you might then change your tune.

Quit with the self-important "it's all about Wigan" drivel as there are other clubs it hinders to a greater extent that don't spend all their time playing the victim card.

Is it about Wigan or isn't it? You seem confused.

I'm quite clear in that whatever system is in place it should be working for the good of the game as a whole.

I don't - as it happens - favour a turnover or profit related cap. In an ideal world we'd expand the live cap monitoring process to ensure that other aspects of club expenditure are captured so that we don't get the sort of serious financial difficulties many clubs have got into under the CC in future due to spending on stadia and other non-player related spending. But I live in the real world and this would be too complex for the RFL, so I think the best thing is to do what RFU did and gradually raise it. We need to do this at least every 5 years or so in any event because players are getting poorer in real terms due to inflation, and unless we address this its going to become a real issue before long. Hopefully the licensing process and the need to submit business plans will ensure that there is sufficient financial discipline to keep clubs in line over a 3 year period, but you never know with RL clubs and we've seen many serious problems during the CC era.

I do think many pro-CC people are motivated by envy of well paid players and think that many sportsmen get paid too much. We've had comments over the years on this board which indicate this is a factor with many pro-CC people.

I consider myself well paid so perhaps I'm lucky enough not to be susceptible to this unfortunate envy of successful people - personally I think its great that our stars make good money, I want RL to be a success and its players to be rewarded accordingly. But this ambition is not shared throughout the RL world, unfortunately.

That's a new one.

The "level playing field" or "Competitive Super League" is nothing whatsoever to do with the SC and never has been.
We have a league with 14 full time clubs and this is acheived because SKY provide something like £18m a year which facilitates this.
Without SKY's money we would have four or at the most six clubs who would be full time the rest part time.
As for Wigan being out spent, well we have been for the 10 or 11 years of the SC. Other clubs took advantage of the tax breaks and other noted scams which gave them a head start over Wigan whom DW prevented from using these methods to enlarge their spending on players. Mo once estimated some trophy winning clubs were 4 International class players better off than Wigan by using these scams which Wigan could not use.
Other clubs couldn't use them for other reasons.
Some club's fans are now complaining on their respective boards that their recruitment is negligible, perhaps the reason is they are now being held back due to HMRC clamping down on most if not all of these scams.
Following the Canterbury and Melbourne SC busts down under the NRL are to trail a system to replace their SC. We should do the same so we are not left behind yet again by RFL's slow administrators and some of the SL chairmen who are even slower.

It's a point I've been making for years, but since the anti-CC case is so overwhelming, I'm not surprised you missed one amongst a myriad of anti-CC points...

Rugby Union is very much like 'Purple Aki' in the way of harrassing young and talented Rugby League players who do not want the attention of the subject in question but gets hassled none the less.

Rugby Union = Purple Aki

I suppose that's true if you ignore:
a) the salary cap exemptions given to Wigan when the cap was introduced, and
b) the biggest cap breach penalty in SL history, and
c) the fact that Wigan have been quoted as one of the clubs that used the "tax breaks", in fact I think IL admitted as much IIRC (someone on here will recall).

Funny that Dave Whelan is reported to have refused to use such nefarious tax schemes (despite his large usage of other tax 'efficiency' schemes in his various companies), yet Wigan Athletic are one of the football clubs that are being investigated for just such use.

Amusing thread. Typical of the CC debate. Wigan fans raise genuine concerns about the threat to the game as a whole - which is consistent with the way that most Wigan fans have approached salary cap issues since the cap was first proposed, with many, myself included believing at the outset that it was worth trying for the good of RL even if likely not to be in Wigan's short term interest.

Saints fans then attempt to derail the debate and turn it into a discussion about Wigan, recycling many of the old, failed arguments, irrelevancies and urban myths.... the one argument they can't use of course is that Wigan fans wouldn't be opposing the CC if their team was on top. We are back on top and many of us are still against the CC, because we are RL fans first, not blinded by hatred/fear of another club or a parochial my-club-first mentality....

Someone should now lock this thread, because that sums it up perfectly.

The SC exemptions were only given to Wigan because they had to be.
Wigan had players under contract to a value far more than the SC. The SC limit was decided almost overnight. Wigan let the RFL know that if they (Wigan RL) cancelled the player's contracts those players most certainly would sue the club for breech of contract. Equally certain, I believe, the RFL were informed that should that happen Wigan would seek financial redress from the RFL.
As you know the RFL capitualted and Wigan were allowed dispensation.

"The most massive breech" Not sure which case this is. Wigan were deducted points for a massive breech and contested the decision. An independent panel was set up who's decision was that Wigan had not breeched the salary cap nor broken the salary cap rules but had contravened the spirit of the salary cap. They were therefore deducted league points although of course they had not breeched the cap nor broken the SC rules.

The various scams I mentioned were the use of image rights, benefit trusts etc and the then numerous other scams. The HMRC has now set limits on amounts allowed for image rights so all clubs can work on the same basis.

As long as the SC is in force there will be suspicion that winning clubs are breaking the cap when very likely they are not. This is not healthy for the game.
I really do think that after 10 years or so of this SC we do look for an alternative which will be transparent, easily understood and virtually cost free to administer. The Aussies appear ready to do it, so should we.

Try telling that to your players, some of whom epitomised playing the victim card during the GF and at other times during the season, particularly in the case of your ginger scouse Whinger. Secondly tell it to your fans who have been moaning about injuries, your coach and many of your players all season on PlasticScouse.com.

Incidentally the only thing I have against the salary cap is that no fulltime professional player should be expected to put their bodies on the line week in week out to entertain the fans whilst earning less than 25k a year in some cases due to a system which doesn't allow for young players coming through from the under 20's to cover for injuries to have their contracts renegotiated mid season due to the 'spirit of the cap'. Judging by your frequent visits to our forums I'd say the phrase 'all about Wigan' could quite easily be used to describe the reasons for your apparent obsession, bitterness and jealousy. I suggest you spent a bit less time on here and a little bit more time dealing with your issues whilst reflecting on another Grand Final loss.

Can't we get past this Saints/Wigan argument and see who the real enemy is.
We all have to stick together and fight for the good of the game.
I understand the rivalry between our two great clubs but we both have a common enemy(not Wire BTW) and fight for the kids in our game.
Surely we can all do this for the good of the game.

The 20/25 was abolished a few years back wasn't it?

Well yeah, but the RFL don't post on here, AFAIK...

English RL needs Sam Tomkins as he's the best player in the league. Shame he isn't more marketable.

Interesting view. Let's just ignore that he's one of the few British RL players to date - if not the only one - who's featured in a TV advertising campaign.

Clearly someone doesn't agree with you.

Which one?

The one run on Granada for the Wigan v Warrington match last July.

I think what he means is that he is not marketable on a national scale.

Of course he has featured in the clubs TV ad, but that is not the same as advertising products for Nike, Puma, Adidas, Gilette etc.

Thats not the lads fault obviously, more another symptom our sports lack of media coverage.

He is withouth a doubt the best young English player in the game at the momment and it is a shame that your average man on the street will never know who he is because of the sport he plays.

In that respect, I can't think of too many British RL players who've been marketable.

Personally, I thought the OP was having a snide dig at Sam, but if I'm wrong I apologise to him and take the point.