well not really, that player may be exceptional value for money, if they dont have the space on the cap he cannot be signed so any measurement of his quality becomes immaterial, also clubs arent using the same scale because all clubs cant afford the cap and players have shown a willingness to play for the big clubs for less money

now this is a principle that stretches across both caps, and even in a none capped world (no club is working with a bottomless budget).

where they differ is that A) players like Ellis would be less likely and less able to play for less money at the bigger clubs under a points system,
B) youth development and bang for your buck become much more important under a points system because it wont be your 6-10 internationals who win you trophies but the other 15-19 players who are the vast majority of the squad
c) if a club wants to compete with union they can
D) we would be more likely to see the very top quality overseas players come over, as they count highly on the points cap but clubs would be able to offer them more money
E) there is no possible way of fudging the cap, we can all see every week where clubs are, its a much more open and transparent cap

surely 50% more so?

if overseas player A's £50k a year contract now costs them £75k on the cap, he becomes a fair bit more attractive than overseas player B's £200k a year contract which now costs £300k on the cap

Yes, really. That club has decided they value the other players (the ones they have signed) higher.



As more clubs are becoming able to spend to the cap we are getting more competition at the top end of the league with more big clubs. This is what I want to see.



A would be a bad thing, hindering player's career progression. As for B, bang for your buck is less important if you can afford to send more bucks - clubs spending the most on salaries would get the best players in each point category. C isn't an issue, seriously, Smith is back now you can chill out about it. D would clearly benefit the few clubs who spend the most. E is irrelevant as there would be no need to fudge the cap as it wouldn't stop clubs from trying to buy success.

No change then. Cheaper player has less impact on the available cap space.
Would you be so worried about in increase in NICs or a clamdown on image rights or offshore payments?

Perhaps now foreign player A at £75K seems poor value to english player C at £65K though. Or English players D, E and F can all be signed instead of player B. More English players playing pro.

Why does that matter?



I'm not avoiding anything, you brought imaginary figures that relate to nothing into the equation.



Ah, so we get back to big clubs being able to pay players more and reducing competition.

Let's be honest, this is all about keeping Leeds at the top isn't it?

With the current cap, you can't have a team of superstars, with this suggestion you can't have a team of superstars. There's no change. What can happen though is whereas now a club like Salford can compete with bigger clubs for signatures by offering more money, under the new one they couldn't because the bigger clubs would blow them out of the water. Where a squad man may take a chance at a smaller club and thrive, why bother when they could sit in a big squad earning a shed load more money with a slowly decreasing points cost?

to put it a bit more in the real world under the system proposed

Leeds would have 104 points (thats with 16 points exempted for 8 international players who were developed by them)
Saints would have 106 (with 14 points exempted)
Wigan would have 112 (with 6 points exempted)
Wire would have 106 (with 2 points exempted)
Hull would have 102 (with 6 points exempted)
Hull KR would have 108 (with 0 exemptions)
Quins would have 96 (with 2 points exempted)
and Salford 100 (with 0 exemptions)

as you can see, there isnt a massive difference in totals between clubs, but it shows how important developing your own quality players becomes, and how reliant the smaller clubs are on average overseas players

or they arent able to get rid of the other players,

really, which big clubs are these? ones backed by sugar daddies by any chance? ones which were traditionally big by anychance
so in our attempts to spread talent across the league it is a bad thing that all the best players dont congregate at the big clubs?
but only so many of them, so there would always be players of a similar quality that couldnt sign for the big clubs.

you are looking at it from the point of view that there are more points available than players of the necessary quality to improve the lower teams to fill them, I have put the some totals above to highlight this wouldnt be the case, that most of the top clubs would need to release experienced quality players just to be able to fit under the cap,

this would leave more players for the likes of Quins, increase the supply but not the demand.

besides anything it would force clubs to have more youngsters in their squad. Which would automatically mean there would be more experienced quality players available for lower clubs

well that is a good thing, and in the future if another club tried to sign a player like Smith, that club if they so wished would be in a position to compete

and everyone else in the league, as A)that club would not be able to compete for the players they would compete for now as they had signed better already, allowing other clubs to sign them. B) we would have better quality players throughout a more evenly spread league leading to a higher quality league, a better product and all the associated benefits that would bring

other than the points cap limiting the actual amount of players you can bring in from elsewhere, considering they cost more on the cap

i dont doubt this is the case, and would happily see fewer average overseas players come over

A side effect of this though would be it becoming virtually impossible to bring a top quality import over, we wouldnt see Barrett, Johnson, Lauitiiti, Eastwood, Buderus, Gidley, etc come over because they would simply be too expensive and i think our league would be poorer for it

it was a direct response to your assertion, you missed the last bit out, it would have pointed you in the direction

it was an example which highlighted the inaccuries in your premise

no you are confused, its about removing the link between these two things.

no, in fact, if you fully understood the cap, you would see that Leeds would be quite hard hit
WTF, no you have clubs who have less money offering more money? when did Salford last out bid Leeds or Saints for a star player? only for a very limited amount of players, and in a way that would mean there would need to be some 'give' elsewhere in the squad
their points cost wouldnt decrease firstly. Secondly why would a big club spend shed loads or money and 4 points on a player who couldnt get a game for them when it would mean should a better experienced non-international become available they have taken themselves out of the running?

I'm looking at it from the point of view that players will be grouped into categories, 6 point players, 5 point players etc. (with a little bit of fudging to make it easier for the top clubs to keep the top players). Clubs will be limited as to how many players they can sign from each group. Clubs who spend the most on salaries will get the best players from each group. Leading to the exact problems of clubs trying to buy success that the salary cap addresses (those problems primarily being clubs spending beyond their means and a lack of competitive fixtures).

well that is where you are going wrong.

Players would be worth the same amount of points to any club trying to buy them, the only club who would benefit from any exemption or dispensation are the club players are currently at.

Yes, I'm aware of that. My point still stands that the best players in each group will go to the club paying the highest wages. Short term wage inflation, long term clubs taking financial gambles as the only way to try to be successful.

again, clubs would be limited in what players they could bring in, so they couldnt bring in more than one or two of each group in each position, this would spread the talent around rather than concentrate it.

I would also argue there isnt a huge difference in quality between the players in each group, i doubt clubs are going to complain because there club only got Gareth Ellis when they could have got Sam Burgess for a bit more money, or they only got JJB rather than Gilmour

It wouldn't spread the talent around because this would apply to all clubs and they could only bring in players whose quality matches their spending ability.



Or if they only got James Roby rather than [url=http://www.rlwc08.com/players/ireland/bob_beswick.aspxBob Beswick[/url?

yes, it would apply to all clubs, so the bigger clubs wouldnt be able to hold onto the better players, It would become for instance a poor use of the points cap for leeds to be spending 12 points on 3 wingers, meaning one of Donald, Hall, or Smith would need to leave and join a different club, leaving the way open for a smaller club to pick one of them up

there is no cap, ever, anywhere that would legislate for poor recruitment

Ah but Smokey, in your example you highlighted your point based on a 50% increase when I said 10. If Wire are paying King 150k he would become 165k on the cap, not that much of a biggie. Where the system would really reward clubs would be coupled with my homegrown ruling of a further ten percent discount totalling 20%.

Where this really works is that overseas players arent directly too expensive and young players arent forced to stay at one club due to being expensive on someone elses cap but when coupling the two together - Homegrown V Overseas, the club is encouraged to take the homegrown player.
That and we can increase payments to players without really increasing the true monetary cap.

Your system values them as equals. Which is insane. Playing for any international team other than Australia, New Zealand or England would have serious repercussions for a player's chances of a SL contract.
What about the vast majority of Super League players who would be classed as 'experienced' but without representative honours? The players who make up the majority of SL teams. What's going to spread their talent around the league?

Who's talking about star players? What could be a star player for Salford, may well just be a squad man for Leeds. Therefore currently it is quite feasible that Salford may offer more money than Leeds to a player due to the total cap on both clubs spending. Under the points system they would both cost the same amount of points but Leeds could pay that player a damn sight more. How's that spreading the talent around the clubs?



A player would cost the same points for either team in the example above, where would there need to be give for Leeds?



If you understood how the cap in that article works you'd know that the points a player is worth decreases after a certain length of time at a club. So a squad player could sit there getting more money with the club losing points off his total after a length of time. Have you read the article?




Who's talking about not getting a game? Squad players get all sorts of game time but aren't classed as essential players?



No different to a monetary cap then?

i was directly addressing a 50% increase.

I would agree with taxing overseas players and exempting youngster, i would be very very much in favour of it

that has already been addressed in that there would need to be a separate system for those outside the tier one nations.

they would naturally need to move, having more youngsters and fewer experienced SL players would allow more 'star' players. It would be up to each club to find a balance they were comfortable with

This would be exactly the same. Unless now you are saying that leeds are going to start spending huge amounts of money on players they would class as no better than a 'squad' man


Because they can only fit a certain amount of players under the cap, when signing one it is likely they would need to release someone else unless they had spare capacity

that would be for a maximum of two points for international players, after 5 years service. I highly doubt a team is going to pay over the market rate to keep a player for 5 years so that they can gain a maximum of two points after the fifth year

ok, so why would the pay a shed load of money and 4 points on a player they didnt really want?

except in the monetary system, according to you, Smaller clubs need to pay more to attract poorer quality players, entrenching the bigger clubs position and making it easier for them to attract more better players.

As SBR has said, there will be players of different ability within the same points category, would Leeds pay more for these players if they wanted them, of course they would. But with your system, there would be no limit on what they could pay them.



So no change to now then, apart from the fact that the teams that can pay the most can have the pick of the best players within each point range because they can pay them more.



*edit* scrap that comment, I've re read your post

.



Who said they'd try and sign someone they didn't want? Why wouldn't they want a squad man? It's less of an incentive for the player to want to move.



And in the points system a smaller club still needs to pay more money to attract players, but has less chance of doing so because the big clubs can now pay them more money. So the smaller clubs either settle for players within each points total that the big clubs don't want, or bankrupt themselves trying to compete with the increased wages. Therefore entrenching the bigger clubs position even more than now and making it easier for them to attract the better players within each points category.

Judging by some of his replies to a number of different posts it seems apparent that he (SmokeyTA) has not read the article. Which is worrying as he was the original poster and so started the thread and posted the link.

As I said in an earlier post I think that he is either too stubborn to admit he may be wrong in his insistence that a points system would be any better than the current monetary cap or he is simply unable to understand that there are various problems with the proposed system that he cannot see but that many others can.

He is the one that started the thread and posed the question "a better way?" yet he seems unable to accept that other people believe it may not be.

Perhaps the question should have been "A better way for Leeds?" To which the obvious answer is "Yes". Which I suspect is the reason Smokey is so vociferous in his defence of it, what with Leeds currently in the mix with the "smaller" clubs in the table. It must be quite painful falling from such a high horse.

Still, he is conststent if nothing else.

the idea of a points based salary cap has been discussed before this cronulla guy mentioned it

it doesnt stop clubs from overspending so its a dumb idea

the current nrl salary cap works well but perhaps some minor changes as are currently being discussed for cap allowances for juniors and long serving players

clubs are more important than players, as is an even playing field

just because rugby union or AFL want to pay millions for RL players because of a lack of their own talent doesnt mean we have to overpay as well.

they all come back to league anyway