Yeah Wigan RLFC know what supportable means. Does being bought for a fiver purely to bolt onto a planning application quite cover it?

Mmm, whilst I'd begrudge anyone telling me how to run my business (although to a degree the government does, and if I had long term liabiliies, I'm sure the bank would want a say), sports clubs seem especially prone to failure. Rugby League does not have enough depth in potential top flight clubs to risk losing anyof them.

on the financial side i agree completely we need to get teams houses in order before we can raise any cap, but it is still a reason we are being hindered, saints haven't been affected yet but could easily lose 3 players that we'd have built the team around for years as we can't match their offers.

As for the player drain i wasn't just speaking about established players but super league off the top of my head rugby league in general has lost robinson, farrell, ashton, hape, vainikolo, tiquiri, folau, gasnier, tahu, sonny bill, ellis, flanagan, burgess catalans have lost pelo and at least one other to french ru, Thornley has gone from wigan before even getting a game, that doesn't cover juniors coming into sport opting for ru over rl, if they get offered £20000 in rl or £40000 in ru, at 18 and with a short career ahead they'd be mental to turn it down. We won't really know how many good players we are missing out on as a sport because clubs can't keep them all.

Australia sorted their deal out and are now a realistic place for players financially as well as skillfully and we could see a few more go in the next 18 months

Not sure about giving more uk players chances as not enough teams are producing them and to replace the quality of a graham or roby you have to look overseas.

and where would saints be if mcmanus hadn`t put his money into saints? the debt was over £4 million at one point and your old board had to remortgage the stand. most of that debt is still thre ,its just classed as director loans.

Screwed.

Hence the reason you'll find most Saints fans are firmly in favour of a cap which prevents this reoccuring.

I'd much rather have a club to watch, albeit one which loses the odd star player every so often, rather than a a couple of Harlem Globetrotter seasons before crashing and burning into debt ridden oblivion.

Exactly right and the sooner SL clubs wake up to this the better off they will be.

At the moment, it would be reckless and detrimental to the competition to raise the salary cap just to please a few clubs such as Saints, as about 8 clubs would struggle to manage a higher salary bill (just look at the financial results this year of Hull KR and Crusaders) and then there will be clubs losing top players to stronger clubs at a higher rate than we already have.

As for McManus and Graham, I can understand McManus' concerns and why he has spoken out. He is running a business and if the top players leave not just saints but the other Super League clubs, the competition can lose appeal, therefore could impact sponsors and supporters. Graham has never hid the fact of a desire to play in the NRL and who can blame him? The NRL is the biggest competition and every week is a huge challenge.

For England internationally it is better that these players are going over, for saints and super league its bad news. The only way to have some sort of prevention to this is the clubs who nurture the players such as Graham, Roby, Ashton, Burgess, Tompkins etc receive compensation, unfortunately to do that it would become all legal and through courts etc.

Why would our chairman comment on ashton, robinson, ellis or burgess going ?

It has nothing to do with him what happens at wigan, leeds, bradford.

If you don't think the is going to be a problem with all local talent being tapped up by aussie clubs then your living in another world. It won't be long before the aussies will be tapping up sam tomkins.

What sir mac is saying is spot on.

This may seem mad as jammer imo is the best prop in this country and one of the best props in the world but i don't think the loss of jammer will as massive as losing a top class scrumhalf, stand off or hooker.

As long as saints replace him with a good prop i'd rather us keep eastmond, roby and pryce.

I feel it is just not about the money with Graham, he is young and wants to try the good life that such as Burgess is having down under, is that a crime, just as Louis for some reason wants to try out St Helens instead of London, but this time it is because he wants success and can you blame him, but Quins RL have put a lot of time and money into him grooming him and it is just like the Graham situation.

No way can the salary level be increased to please or or two clubs, if so we will take the game back to the old days of just a few clubs winning all the time which is not good for the sport.

The Truth is only perhaps one or two clubs are making money! the rest are running at a loss and if they do not have big backers such as David Hughes at Quins running up debts, this can't go on forever, something is wrong with our game and it is time those who run the game from Clubs stop thinking just about their own club and success.

Both Tomkins brothers have stated they don't want to head to Aus, but it's hardly earth-shattering, all the inbreds in Deliverance stayed near the river.

More likely they're frightened of the flying monkeys and the wicked witch they saw on the film.

If he goes, he goes. The club will continue as it always has done.

Sam was fed up down under on the tour according to the paper as he was missing family and friends which means at least we can keep him a few more years.

I don't think any NRL side would touch joel tomkins after the four nations, he looked way out of his league.

Is that the excuse for him not having a very good tour.

Could well be

By his standards he was shi*e I agree - however like most of the Englan team he wasnt used in the way he should have been.

Like the situation England football team have, the players play completely different games for their country then there club.

The NRL is the best RL competition in the world and it is completely understandable that a player would want to go and test himself at that level. It's no different that footballers wanting to be exposed to playing in the European Champions League. The only difference is that in football there are several clubs where you can have that exposure whereas in league the exposure you can get is in the NRL.

If the forthcoming NRL television deal is anything like the value which is being banded around then the decision to go to the NRL will become easier and easier for British players. There is very little we can do about that other than continue to grow our sport at the fastest pace its finances will allow. We will have to accept that we won't be able to compete with the NRL unless SKY give us a bumper pay deal next time around and that is unlikely. If the NRL does grow significantly, perhaps we will get our wish of either a British team in the NRL or enough British players involved in the NRL to turn us into a credible international force.

I wouldn't blame him at all if he went. He should do whatever he thinks is best for him and his family

I'd miss watching him because he's easily the best prop in Super League but would be interested to see how well he does in such a tough competition

Having our best players play in the NRL will hinder that.

Stop replying to my posts!

Quite right (again) Rogues, we should all follow the lead of the Banks, they are BIG business and Oh just a minute