I can imagine Mr Hetherington choking on his breakfast this morning reading the comments made regarding salary cap. This will really cause a storm if Matchroom get their wishes.

I don’t mind getting rid of or significantly raising the salary cap so long as it’s accompanied by a proper plan to raise club revenues at the same time. Otherwise we end up back in the same situation of every penny being spent on the same players instead of club infrastructure

I wouldn’t mind as long as the extra money isn’t used to pay the existing players more. It should be used to attract better players from the NRL

I liked the idea of the 50% of revenue rule to save the clubs from themselves, although the downside is it can make the competition uneven.

The problem with that would be that certain clubs wouldn’t be able to spend to the current cap

Agreed, it’s not a magic bullet. If I had the choice, I’d be franchising with the 50% rule, and criteria about grounds, academy, local amateur support, revenue streams and average attendance over a period.

It’s not perfect but it would make the game sustainable and help to grow from grass roots.

Agreed about franchising it needs to strategically chosen and include expansion opportunities for the game

Interesting -

"The cap makes it a bit boring in a way, the big clubs need to dominate, like when rugby league was powerful in the 1980s with Wigan and St Helens. If the richer owners are pumping their money in to get the best players and create the biggest stars, surely that’s a good thing for the sport as a whole.”

So basically, back to boom and bust we go then. The league wasn't strong, it was massively lopsided and led to "powerful" Wigan basically bankrupt and having to sell their soul to pay debts and a whole host of teams bankrupt due to "chasing the dream".

So what would you suggest?

The big clubs are still the strongest clubs. Its still Wigan, Leeds or Saints usually winning the trophies with the odd Hull or Warrington success thrown in there. Problem lies with these sides being nowhere near of the quality they were in years gone by. Yes the league as a whole is more competitive but i don't look forward to or bother in the main watching the games between top teams these days, unless its a play off match as they are nowhere near the quality they were early 2000's to the end of our three in a row. This decade the game has been continually on the slide and we are where we are now.

One of the biggest issues currently is the lack of depth of talent. If there is more money to spend one of two things will happen:
The current good players will just get paid more. Great for them but does nothing to enhance the game overall.
SL clubs will chase a high quality of NRL players. Given the size of the NRL cap that would mean chucking some serious cash at players. SL might get a few quick wins but in truth I doubt hearns suggestion would help anyway given the size of the NRL cap.

So what's the alternative? I don't know that but agree with the sentiment that the standard of SL overall is falling badly which is why the league is competitive - because the bigger teams are not as good as they used to be and this is not what we want.

Maybe the answer is to exclude players that have come through the clubs academy from the cap. Would promote bringing next generation through.
Main problem though is lack of exposure. We sold our sport to sky. Next TV deal should be split with minimum 1 game a week being on free to view TV. May result in an initial drop in revenue but the increase in attention and sponsorship deals over time would be worth it

Free to view is a start, but this happens to some extent already on Sky Sports Mix and with the Challenge Cup on the BBC. We need to build an awareness of the sport though - without that it will be dead air. I know people have little good to say about Sky but you have to wonder who would pay for the rights if they didn't?

What doesn't help with the profile of the game of course is when we're on the BBC in the CC Semis and turn in the kind of dog turd performance that we did...

That'd need a big re-vamp of the game's production line. Quite simply, the standard of young players isn't up to much, by and large. It's unfortunate but I reckon increased promotion of younger players would actually lower standards further. The game certainly can't withstand much more of that.

Spot on.

Though it'd allow clubs to retain their top players. Leeds with Hall Watkins ward etc and saints with James Graham. Stop the nrl taking the best just due to the cap