Yep, that's right, we couldn't. and we shouldn't. We should be producing our own.

Thankfully (and this is making me sick in my mouth a bit to say this), at least Wigan are going the right way with producing quality juniors. Tomkins brothers especially.

Interesting that St Helens assistant coach is on sky sports news blaming the salary cap for RL loosing players to RU.

FWIW i am in favour of the salary cap but in its origional guise. Limiting it to a percentage of turnover prevents one or two money men throwing money at certain clubs 'a la' abramovic but creates an insentive to and rewards any individual club who increase their turnover.

The two clubs who breached the cap most recently over there (Storm and Bulldogs) didn't just break it by a relatively small amount, they smashed it to bits. I think that will be why they got such huge penalties not because the Aussies are more serious about it than us.

When Wigan broke the cap they did so using a mechanism of deferring wages from one season to the next which was an accepted practice in Australia, so how does that show the Aussies take it more seriously?

I don't think complete hogwash about being restricted to the spending levels of smaller clubs. By this I mean some clubs will always vote against an increase in the cap because they can't afford it and seemingly never will be able to. They are in the majority so the cap does not get raised.

Now on the face of it clubs who can't afford a rise voting against sounds reasonable but what is seemingly not happening is they don't seem to be increasng revenue so they too [icould[/i vote for an increase in the cap. So IMO when people complain we have a salary cap set at a level that panders to the smaller clubs the root of this complaint is these clubs do not seem capable of ever generating increased revenue so we will always be stuck at this level of cap.

It seems to me the only way around this is to insist clubs have a certain level of turnover (or proper business plans to get there for new franchisees) to get or retain a franchise. It should be a goal of all clubs to increase revenue and while that may be the case at some point certain clubs will hit a ceiling and just won't be able to increase it any more. They need to stand aside for clubs that can or could do so or I can't see how the cap will ever be raised.

Maybe there aren't enough possible "replacement" clubs to do this and if so we ought to stop kidding ourselves RL can remain a pro sport.

My fear exactly.

I'm not convinced the bigger clubs can even sustainably afford higher levels of wages though Dave, not without injections of cash from board members and benefactors.

For example, I found an article this morning on the liverpooldailypost website stating that Warrington's returned accounts to companies house for 2009 showed that, despite winning silverware for the first time in 35 years, and the merchandise and ticket sales that go along with that, the club made a profit of only £28k. You can read it [url=http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/07/28/challenge-cup-triumph-puts-warrington-wolves-into-profit-92534-26944440/here[/url

Wigan may be in a more prosperous position than Warrington financially, certainly with the SL title in the bag (I'm guessing that the SL title offers more prize money than the CC), but I would be staggered if it were to be by much. Also, relying on prize money coming in to increase your revenue allowing you to spend more on players is a recipe for future operating loss as soon as you don't have as successful a season as would be relied upon.

"The Warrington coach Tony Smith has called for an increase in the salary cap for Super League clubs"

Source Sky Sports Rugby League text page.

Made all the more interesting an opinion by the article I've just linked to. I'm all for increasing the level of the salary cap. But I'm also not an idiot and realise the sport and individual clubs is/are not as rich as some believe.

Course he has. He's got Simon Moran bankrolling his club

Clubs should only be allowed to spend what they can afford to.
That's why I believe the RFL/SL should dump the SC and replace it with a "break even rule". Bust the BER and you get points deducted.
The SC hasn't stopped clubs going broke and never will. We need something that will stop going bust.

A number of clubs should have an increase in revenue as they go into new stadiums. New stads transform a club's revenue turnover.

Whether we keep the SC or go for something better we will not stop our players going to Union as the money offered is so way in excess of any amount SL clubs can pay. We have to deal with it by other means.

Maybe not but it will help.

I agree with your earlier point re the CC doing ZIP to prevent clubs from going bankrupt.

The RFL are pathetic.

He stated that last Thursday on Radio Manchester. I'm surprised it took so long to hit the press.

I am not suggesting clubs do rely on prize money but what I have never understood is what is wrong with seeking out rich board members and benefactors. Man City in soccer can't afford their players based on mechanise and gate receipts. Everyone seems obsessed with clubs being run as a business and only getting revenue the club itself can generate. Well I don't think we are competing with a sport in RU which does that. Clubs get huge handouts from the RFU, international players have central contracts and so on. I don't think given the higher salary cap in RU anyone minds some rich benefactor making it possible for a club to spend to the cap.

At the moment it seems the only acceptable way for clubs to generate revenue is gate receipts/season tickets, sponsorship and merchandise. All these revenue streams have limits even for an RU club.

My view is we don't need to increase the salary cap that much to help stave of RU raids on players. They do not have limitless funds and won't be targeting every player in the game. What I don't see though is a desire to increase the cap as some sort of stated aim of the RFL (however you do it). They seem happy to let the clubs vote on it and for reasons previously discussed it never goes up.

I think that's a reasonable argument Dave. My concern about the benefactor route is that sometimes benefactors can get bored and remove their backing, it leaves the club on the verge of extinction, the fans frustrated and a squad of players essentially out of a job. And yes, I'm well aware that my own club currently has an independently wealthy man at the helm who has put a lot of money in to the club, but I would much prefer it if the club could generate it's income without relying on handouts when it gets in to trouble.

Isn't their a possibility of an increase when the next sky deal comes through. If RL gets paid what it deserves then we should be ok. I'm pretty sure we get much higher viewing figures than RU and yet don't get as much money.

Richard Lewis was quoted as saying that ESPN were interested in broadcasting rights last month, and that the commercial deals being negotiated and hinted at by other "broadcast partners" could result in Sky/BBC losing their exclusivity on coverage. In short, he's made positive noises, whether there's any substance to it though we'll only find out when pens get put to paper in a few months' time.

A case of the tail wagging the dog and the SL club chairmen having too much sway over the game.

Lack of ambition maybe a strong word but many chairmen of clubs either don't have this or they use the club as a bit of play thing and in some cases see as an opportunity to strip assets of the clubs

I read that, I wouldn't mind ESPN if we got more money from it!

Exactly the reason why RL should be moving away from relying on rich benefactors, IMO. Or at least striving to, anyway. The unfortunate reality is that right now, they are also needed.

This is a very good point, RU are not going to target every player, only a small minority actually.We have seen that Eastmond has gone i think we will increasingly see is that RL clubs will just not be able to keep the likes of Eastmond and Sam Tomkins for their whole career, the draw of the cash will be too much to resist. I would love to see Sam at wigan forever but i doubt very much that he will. He couldn't be blamed either really, it is a short career and at current salary levels there are very few Superleague players who will retire from the game with financial security.

With the dark side rumoured to be sniffing around SuperLeague, do you guys think we need a salary cap increase to try and keep our top young lads in Super League?

Another salary cap thread - no.

The SC is only part of the problem. The main issue is the failure by the RFL and clubs to manage the game properly and achieve financial stability - we must have growth if the game is to prosper, but we haven't even got a position where clubs are stable and secure in their finances. Football can afford the odd club to go bust, it's a massive game. RL can't afford to carry on with club after club getting into serious difficulties.

RL clubs are going backwards in real terms. The SC discourages growth but is only part of a general malaise in RL, evidenced by pathetic envy from fans that players can earn £100k a year for playing RL (when many footballers earn that for a week's work!) and a desire to dumb down standards to prevent small, failing clubs being left behind (though that's happened anyway, the smallest club to win SL is St Helens!) in some ridiculous quest for a level playing field....

I guess that answers my question

I don't think that simply raising the cap will make much difference. Teams are operating at a loss just to reach it at it's current level so raising it will only make a difference to the teams that can spend beyond the current £1.6m wage cap. There can't be more than 3-4 teams in SL that are in a position to do that