Which in turn would force all the clubs to strive for better comercial success, you would still have limits in place regards senior squad numbers so 1 team would be unable to buy all the players it wanted.

Also point tonight only recently have the clubs all been able to spend to the full amount of the cap, when others have been restricted on spend due to there turnover and we still have a more competative league.

Your views on any team in the top 8 beating the Penrith team are also way off the mark in my opinion.

The limit still meant that the clubs with superior commercial revenue and wealthy backers did not blow away the clubs whose spend was limited to 50% of their income. If the limit was removed, the disparity of the big clubs spending power and the smaller clubs would become greater leading to the better players automatically gravitating to the clubs who can offer them more money. I know this happens anyway but under the current regulations top clubs are unable to hoard the better players. Subsequently these players are spread more evenly across the league which should in turn drive upon standards. I’m sure the Leeds players have to raise their game to a higher level against St Helens then they do Wakefield. The problem is that they only have to do this 3 – 4 times a season. When this is happening every week then the playing standards will only improve. It still has some way to go but I think that is a good thing.

I still think an ultimate cap is needed however the academy ruling is a good one. This, in theory, gives an advantage to clubs who put the effort into developing young talent and hiders those who chose to ignore the junior side. This does indeed give them a larger salary cap but is proportionate to the how many home grown players they have in their squad. .

I think what you might be witnessing is the spreading out of the best talent. Let's take Westerman for example. There is no doubt that, 10 years ago, JW would have been lined up for a 'big-4' club right now. He hasn't, in fact he has a long-ish term deal at Cas' - and I hope he stays there for a long time. This is just an example of the fact the talent pool is now spread wider amongst the clubs.

However, despite there being MORE decent players being produced, there are fewer clubs with a monopoly of the talent and therefore fewer games of, say, the quality of last weeks Saints-Leeds game. The up side is that there is more and more chance of these clubs being beaten by other clubs in the comp.

Although jonh and others decry the loss of more 'big' games, the truth is that the majority of games 10 years ago were either predictable (big club versus small club) or of poorer quality (I would think of our team circa 2001 for example compared to now). Time dulls the memory and the games that we do tend to remember are mostly the better ones and I would suggest that there is some selective memory going on here for some.

The game is improving - I have no doubt about that at all.

3 words

NAIL ON HEAD

i cant agree we are producing more players hence the amount of oversea players in the league

and also if you think back 5 or6 years there were 6 teams who were serious contenders thats 1/2 the league, now there are 2 or 1/7

the sc has levelled the game to the middle, it has brought some teams who were excelling closer to those who were struggling and they have met in the middle and we are left with a league where few excel few struggle and for the most part everyone is average,

plodding along no longer means left behind,

Really?

Leeds, Bradford and Saints, and a Wigan side permitted to spend over the cap. I make that four.

….and the reasons behind the fall away of the Bulls and Wigan are well documented, legal issues and mismanagement respectively. I don't think this has anything to do with he SC bringing down standards.

and hull and wire

anything but a third consecutive leeds v saints gf would be a huge shock this year

that wasnt the case 5 years ago, and it is my opinion this leeds side isnt as good as the 04 one

Your could argue Hull have suffered because of injury for the past couple of years and will be there or there about this time and Wire flattered to device back then as they are doing now.

Bradford made the GF 5 years running up until 2005.

That's one strange world you're living in.

they did, which is kind of my point, the sc is no guarantee of competitiveness, yet it does limit the quality in the league

there are much better ways to make the league competitive than this cap

I would suggest that because you have seen an undoubted improvement at Wakefield you see this in the League.

We will have to disagree on this one I think.

you mean the real one though i can see why that is srange to you

i predict a shock, though i admit its more of a hope than what i actually think

Conversely you have seen a decline at Wigan, relative to the rest of the league. But you have to put that into the context of the raising of standards across the league. Teams who have shown undoubted improvements this decade include Wakefield, Huddersfield, Hull, Hull KR, Warrington. Just Wigan (although only on the pitch) and Bradford struggling in this period.

as a leeds fan i dont believe we are as we were in 04 and i dont believe the 08 side was as good as the 07 one

I see more of most other clubs than I do of Wigan.