good idea/bad idea?

The theory being that a given number of england internationals get part of or an extra salary directly from the RL to stop Union tempting them away.

In theory. YES.

But we must consider several things. Least of all where the money for this central slush fund will come from.

I can see the appeal but there so many issues to be resolved I wouldn't know where to start.

A very good idea on principle, but one that would need a lot of thought. Would the next step be a draft type system so that the elite players got distributed around the Superleague clubs?

I don't believe in the draft, I think our sport is too parochial for it to work.

For example, why would it be fair to ruin Sam Tomkins' boyhood dream of playing for Wigan by forcing him to play for Crusaders, for the simple reason that he is a very good player? I just can't see it.

No. Our system is far different from the American. Why should clubs spend time and money training the likes of Arnold and Tomkins for them to be sent out to Wakefield and Warrington with no productive youth policy of their own.

The RFL just isn't rich enough to do a full central contracting system.

I could imagine a central contract top-up though, where the RFL could contribute a certain amount (say £20k) to a player's wages (SC exempt) if he was an international with x amount of caps and under a certain age. Not a massive amount, but may be enough to make the difference in a bidding war. In return the RFL could demand that the player is made available for international training and preparation for significantly more time than they currently are.

Whether the RFL could afford even this, though, is questionable.

It works in Unions because the RFU holds a considerable amount of the purse strings via internationals cash etc.

The RFL does not, and I can't see the SL teams voluntarily giving up money for this system.

I think what people are missing the point of is the number of high quality players we have. If we had 20 top quality players and were losing 2/3 a year to Union and we had a slew of high profile games to pay for it, then go for it. But neither is true. There are about 4 top quality English players and very few move to Union as they're not really good enough to warrant the risk these days.

I doubt the RL could afford a full wage, but perhaps 10 key players on an extra £20k from them that is outside of the salary cap could help retain top players. This would also encourage players to be a little bit more comitted to our international cause if there was a greater financial benefit to it.

What is £20k going to do to anyone these days? French Union could pay them around £600,000 per season if there was ever anyone to warrant it.

most very top rl players arnt on more than £150k, £200k for absolute world class players. £20k is a nice addition to that, i wouldnt mind an extra 10% on my wages! English RU is under a salary cap as well and they have much bigger squads so we're not a million miles away from them. Addmittedly we will not compete with french RU, but how many players are going to head from British RL straight into French RU?

Very few, given how none of them are going to be deamed good enough. Especially when they can sign the cream of the crop from the NRL. Which returns us to the view that there really is no point having a central contract system.

Central contracts work in sports like cricket because the international element is there. Top quality international players will get central contracts as they spend so much time representing England that it wouldn't be economically viable for them to be paid their wages by the counties. Internationals are the be all and end all in that sport, the county game is a non entity by comparison. League isn't like that, so essentially a central contract system would reward players for a maximum of 4 games per season and if Union (Which subsidises raids on league) wanted them, most would go anyway.

I think things like this should be ignored until there are players good enough to warrant it.

A draft system is a good idea but to have it you would need to disassociate the academy and u20s system from the clubs. Otherwise there is no motivation for clubs to invest in it. This could be done by having the u20s play as university teams and u18s play as college teams. There are quite a few benefits of doing this. I have written quite a lot in the past pushing this idea. Once this was done then a draft system would be a sensible next step.

Going back to central contracts, which I also think this is a good idea. For one thing it would allow internationals to be forced to be rested a certain amount of the season preventing them from being over played. I think that the way that sky money is distributed needs to be reviewed. Money should be given money for playing players that are eligible to play for England (which itself needs to be tightened up) and another for playing top ups to England players as a part of a central contract system.

That's one way of looking at it. You might also look at it as a way for the RFL to get the international game taken more seriously by the clubs. At the moment clubs pay lip service to supporting the international game, but whenever it comes to a conflict of interests over a player's services or over having a weekend break for internationals they always dig their heels in. This is fair enough, as they pay the wages. But with the current system, no matter what the RFL does, we're never going to be able to put together an England side that has had more than a fortnight's preparation after a very lengthy SL season.

If such a system was set up where the RFL paid a percentage of a player's wage, they would rightly be able to demand a particular amount of that player's services for international preparation and/or place a limit on the number of club matches that player could play in that year. I suspect the clubs wouldn't like this, but if the alternative was losing the player to RU, and if it gave them a little breathing space under the SC, then they would go with it. English International RL would have more power, and would be able to field a better prepared, fresher team.

Also, you say that the system isn't worthwhile because we don't have 20 odd top players. The flip side of that is we don't have enough top players to let the likes of Chris Ashton and Lee Smith go to union without doing anything about it.

Why not just pay players who play in the international set up. lets say a player gets picked in the England squad and plays a match he gets £10k. Would mean players might have an incentive in the league to excel in order to get into the squad. it wouldnt effect the salary cap and no one could be blamed for bas as it'd be open to all england eligable players

Would only work if the England coach is full time, otherwise Smith could have picked Wire players for a bonus!

Thankfully we appear to be going down the full time route.

Four or five internationals a year is not enough to warrant central contracts.