Cant see him joining us.

Can't see anyone wanting to leave Huddersfield to come here - why would they (unless we doubled their wages?)

What happens if a player's career is ended by injury/he retires/goes back to Oz etc? Presumably he's deregistered and a financial arrangement is made between club and player. The money then paid to the player to date and under that arrangement counts on the cap for that season?
So we come to an arrangement with Long which is designed to leave us room on this years cap so that we could bring in , say , Ellis now. Long wouldn't just walk away for nothing or not a lot despite his feeling of having let everyone down which is fair enough. He will not presumably though be able to demand a big deal next year anywhere and has expressed both an interest in coaching and playing for/repaying FC. Maybe in return for getting that coaching role next year he'd be willing to walk this year? He may be useful to us next season anyway in keeping Gleeson sweet , mentoring Ellis and others and if he keeps himself fit and the usual injury jinx happens could be called on to re register and play when we run out of halfbacks - after all Webster has often been touted to do that in recent crises. I'm sure the creative BOD over on the East Side would come up with a solution if they were faced with similar circumstances. I'd rather find out about Ellis this year than in 2013. Look at what Saints have done this year with Lomax , Gaskell etc.

I presume our players are all insured and when a player gets an injury that insurance would cover a percentage of the wages??? If that is then the case would those wages (paid by insurance) be counted on the cap?

you presume wrong, from what I have been told in the past.

So players are not insured or the insurance doesn't cover X% of their wages.

on occasion I have been told both, also been told we don't insure for medical costs to the extent that we probably (as fans) imagine we would.

never seen any proof, other than the delays in people going for scans in previous seasons.

Very surprised at that, I thought it would be a thing all Pro RL clubs did.

like I say, never seen any proof that it's true, but the people who have mentioned this have mentioned other things which have been correct.

It wouldn't matter who paid, all his wage would count on the cap.

Raises the question about de-registration though. It's been widely discussed on here that de-registering Long to get Ellis can't happen as Long has played this year and therefore his full wage is on the cap. Yet its been reported that Rovers "won't use any of the money freed up by Masons exit" De-registration is essentially a termination of contract, as was Masons departure.
Also, when negotiating a release, when a player is paid a settlement amount does this count on top of his salary cap wage?

I could understand the observation that the full wage would count when we were working with the cap as it was a few seasons ago, but surelu now it is "live" we only actually accrue the cap expenditure when it is actually paid. And presumably a settlement amount would count along with payments up to the settlement, not what the full salary would be plus the settlement, otherwise their is no advantage to making a settlement in the first place?

I do not see any advantage in paying a settlement to Long, unless the settlement amounts to less than what his wages would be till the end of his contract.

That's the point I'm making, if we de-register Long for the 3 months he's out, it should free up enough cap to allow us to bring Ellis in now.
The idea that some have is that if you play 1 game your full salary counts against the cap no matter what. That simply can't be the case with a live cap.

depends, if we deregister and DON'T pay him then we can, but I can't see him being happy not to get paid.

Even if deregistered his wages would still count surely? Unless he was appointed as a coach of some sort and his wages were then paid for that instead. Although i am not sure that would wash either.

We should be settling his contract ASAP. Or at least de-registering him on an agreed lower wage.

I would agree, it won't wash (or it shouldn't), but if he's agreed to de-registration then effectively he isn't a contracted player. Any payments then couldn't count on the cap. It's not exactly in the spirit of the game, I admit.

I can't see us releasing Long this season in order to get Ellis on board before 2012

a. Why would Leigh want to release their scrum-half early without a transfer fee
b. Agar will probably want Long back for the end of the season, especially if by some miracle we reach the play-offs
c. We would have to compensate Long in 2012 for the salary he hasn't earned for the remainder of the season, assuming he stays on as player/coach for Ellis

I very much doubt Leigh will let Ellis go, or that Ellis himself will want to miss out on winning the league with Leigh (and sticking two fingers up at the idiotic decision to "promote" Widnes)

Leigh are in dire straits financially, a minimal fee would secure his release. But I do think Ellis would say no, and I don't think we would put him in a position like that.

You think a minimal fee is worth more to them than winning the competition?

They'd win it without him.

Leigh could be in administration within the next couple of weeks,from what i've been told.So it may not even take a fee to get him early.

isn't that exactly what you did with obst to cover for long's prolonged absence?? so why do you need to do it again?

They would still count on the cap, the only way it would work was if Long agreed to walk away with no wages. That won't happen.