Agreed absolutely.

It's not a disaster, but the potential for a disaster is there. As you say, it's now time to make some changes to the Salary Cap.

The game needs to protect its young stars. RU scouts are currently circling Wigan like hungry sharks. That's our reward for bringing through a potential golden generation. As things are, there's no reward from the RFL ... which is more than short-sighted of them. It could more accurately be described as criminally bloody negligent.

And before any troll spits out his tea with outrage, just look at the bigger picture. This is not about Wigan. If other clubs were to start bringing through rafts of youngsters (even if they were to pay them properly, as Wigan now do), they would be in the same boat.

It's high time that Academy products were discounted from the Salary Cap. It's the only solution I can see in the short term. One or two may still go, dazzled by the prospect of playing at Twickenham (though their chances of that, if they change codes at 19, are surely no more than their chances of playing against Australia in an RL test - they need to be very wary of that kind of sales pitch). But we have to do something - anything - to try and redress this imbalance, which the RFL looks like it will ignore until the entire England RU team is made up of RL discoveries.

Good luck to the lad I say. To stay in RL purely for the 'love of the game' you'd need to be someone who wasnt actually good enough to be anywhere near the real top earnings bracket of our game, or a fool. Sure he's a talent lost but don't be under any illusions that it couldn't easily have been prevented. The irony is it was one of our coaching staff who originally alerted Sale to Thornley in the 1st place. Oh well, maybe we'll see a St Pats old boys club being set-up at Twickers when Farrell and Thornley turn out together there for England?

www.rugbynetwork.net/boards/read ... 17,quote=1 Some of the posts on there are incredibly daft. Dave Swanton says no offer has been made for Marsh.

www.rugbynetwork.net/boards/read ... 17,quote=1 Some of the posts on there are incredibly daft. Dave Swanton says no offer has been made for Marsh.

A question is begged - why is Thornley still playing in our Under 20s team? Whats the point?

Surely no-one can be surprised?

It's inevitable.

RL would struggle to keep hold of it's players in a completely free market. The CC puts the final nail in the coffin.

RU have learned that it makes more sense to buy potential rather than experience (Hape aside), hence Ashton and Myler, let them learn the game for a few years and promote to England as and when.

Still at least it means that we won't be faced with the prospect of established players crossing codes, RU won't want them by that time.

Can't blame the players for taking the money. I certainly would.

60k a year for someone who hasn't even played a first team game? No, thanks.

Where as that figure come from?

Sale message board, t'other Wigan forum and of course [size=50(and this makes it fact)[/size the pub

Are the comings and going at Wigan a hot topic in le French pubs then.

Catalan bars mate


...and anyway, I'm back in God's country for the [i'summer'[/i.

Myler went to rugby union because even Salford considered him not good enough to offer a contract. Nothing whatsoever to do with the salary cap.

If any rugby league club went around offering the likes of Thornley £60k a year contract they would be in such a dire financial situation within a few years that they would have to sell their ground to Tesco.

Did the salary cap stop Ryan Giggs signing for Salford?

This is of course true, but it's only a matter of time before we lose someone of Tomkins or Eastmond's quality.

We can't afford to have these RU sharks constantly circling our youngsters. If nothing else, it will cause a big distraction.

Thornley is a slighty different case because, according to what I've heard, he and his family were inclined towards Union for quite some time. I don't think loyalty to Wigan or RL was ever an issue with him at all. But with others you wouldn't necessarily have to top what RU are offeirng to keep them in RL, just improve on what you're already giving them without endangering the rest of your pay structure. That's why some kind of modification re. the cap and young homegrown players is required. The only people I could see objecting to that are those who can't (or won't) develop young players of their own.

When Union were pinching has-beens, and I include Jason Robinson in that, it wasn't such a problem. But it has the potential to become a real problem if we allow them to start chipping away at our youth structure.

Maybe the answer(as some people has suggested) is to exclude youngsters from the salary cap then all RL clubs(including my own Saints) can stop the buggers from taking all our best talent.

Even at my club there are rumours still about Eastmond's future whether it's RL or yawnion,I hope and pray he stays in RL even at another club.

I don't think complete exclusion is viable, but something like, say, a 50% discount might be.

Problem, as always, is the tail wagging the dog - all the clubs with no real youth structure have the majority vote.

Normally I'm with you all the way Cruncher but I disagee if you think losing any junior player to RU is worse than losing Jason Robinson. He was 26 when he went and could have been the highest RL player for ages in terms of profile.

We don't get many that are known nationally but he could have been one of them IMO.

Okay, we could have made use of Robinson for another couple of years, no question (though not necessarily on the wages he was demanding).

But those kinds of signings - at least in the UK - are now less likely given the number of flops who followed in his wake. Faz, Harris, Paul, Pryce, Walker - all went for big money and achieved next to nothing. On the other hand, Ashton, a kid, who cost a lot less, has been a revelation, and though I doubt he'll ever fulfill the potential he had in RL, I feel sure he's going to have a long and successful career in RU.

The message of that seems to be "if you get 'em young, you get 'em cheap (not 'cheap' in our terms, but cheaper than Faz. Robinson etc), you get 'em for longer, and you get 'em while they're still fresh, so you can mold them into whatever you want".

To me, promising young RL talent was always our Achilles heel. It seemed to take an age for RU to realise the same thing (as it always does), but they have realised it now and, unless we fix the cap quickly, I fear they'll be back again and again.

Does League ever pinch Union players? I can't think of many. I take it as a compliment that Union clubs are looking at our players - it's a clear indication that theirs is the inferior code.

Agreed.

Perhaps it will take the departure of Eastmond to RU for those at the RFL to stand up and protect what we have. It's not as though were in a position like the Aussies are that when they lose a top player they can produce another one just as good if not better to take his position.

Were a minority sport played by a relativley small amount of people and as daft as it sounds we can't afford to lose any players let alone three quaters to another sport. Just look at Senior, still the best British centre in the league even at his age just shows how much difficulty we have in producing top quality three quarters.

That's more than a bit unfair to the lad and his family and paints a picture that is untrue.

The seeds for this situation were sown over 12 months ago and as I've said in another post could easily have been avoided.

I think it's a great idea in theory, but we have top clubs losing money at the current salary cap level. Bigger wage bills will just mean bigger losses.

The RFL's focus has been on improving clubs' finances and facilities recently, and rightly so. We now look like we may be approaching a decent base from which to grow the cap, but lets not forget the reason it was brought in in the first place.

There are different stories, depending on who you talk to. I can only quote what I've been told.

True, but with the youngsters we're not talking about huge amounts. If we could pay them, say £20k instead of £10k, but with only £10k counting towards the cap, it would be a massive incentive for clubs to develop and keep their own talent, and perhaps also encourage more kids to take up the game professionally.


The 50% of income cap was an excellent idea, and should have been retained. Somewhere along the line it got corrupted into "creating a level playing field" which not only hasn't worked (the same clubs, by and large, are still winning everything), it's pulling the top clubs down to a mediocre level.

Thornley going doesn't surprise any of us. Union have been after him for years.

We used to sign union players and did do for a 100 years until they went pro in 1995. Then the Union to league stopped overnight.
During the time Union players signed for League clubs and Union fans were moaning about it I always said they should sort their own house out if they wanted to stop it.

My POV hasn't changed. If we want to stop players leaving either for Aus RL or Union then British Rugby League has to sort it's own house out. The salary cap takes its fair share of the blame and rightly so but it's not all down to that. Clubs have to increase their revenue and by some margin if they want to retain their best talent. That applies to clubs at the bottom of the League table as well as at the top.

This has just gone up on the M.E.N. sports page menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... rike_again think those posters on another thread, about BBC GMR, thinking people who are concerned about overseas signings affecting our junior production are all anti Wigan might now understand why and before any one shoots me down it's happening at other clubs too. The sport has lost a very good coach

This has just gone up on the M.E.N. sports page menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... rike_again think those posters on another thread, about BBC GMR, thinking people who are concerned about overseas signings affecting our junior production are all anti Wigan might now understand why and before any one shoots me down it's happening at other clubs too. The sport has lost a very good coach

With the loss of such a respected coach, is there trouble behind the scenes at Wigan?

You can't blame this loss on the salary cap, he's not gone as an international coach and they can't offer him a good university deal. Why has he left? Did he just fancy a change?