You are picking and choosing your stats to fit your argument. You cant on one hand argue that im ignoring the implementation of full-time professionalism when comparing pre SC to post SC, then go on to use Wigans success as a defence of the current SC.

If anything my ignoring the advent of professionalism worked in your favour, the fact we went from one maybe two pro clubs playing against Semi-pro ones, to 14 full-time pro clubs, and still haven’t seen a huge jump in competitiveness only strengthens the argument that the SC hasn’t worked.

Im sorry but this argument really holds no water, it is the invisible pink unicorn defence.

The SC needs justify its existence by its effect, the SC has not had the effect it was sold on, it hasn’t made the league more competitive, it hasn’t stopped clubs going bust and it hasn’t stopped clubs stockpiling talent (something else does that), The SC has failed to do what it was supposed to, it is a failure.

The fact that something else, could possibly be worse, even though it didn’t prove much worse when we did have it, and we also have a multitude of other options is not a strong argument.

What we can say for definite about the SC is that it has caused huge depression in player wages, and that we have seen more players go to Union and the NRL and less quality come back the other way.

You are also drawing something of a false dichotomy, in that we have a huge amount more options than the SC as we have it and completely unfettered spending on wages.

It should also be noted that the ‘golden generation’ of Leeds players were in and around the Rhinos prior to the SC’s implementation.

Please please please!!!

Which is exactly what I said




Only if you think we have 14 equal full time clubs. We don't. We have about 5/6 clubs who are "properly" full time pro. The rest might be paying their players as professionals, but the rest of their setup isn't.


So you're saying nothing would be different without a salary cap then? You must be. Or it can be equally dismissed as easily.


I believe it does justify its existence by its effect. You are simply ignoring factors that influenced this effect and are evaluating the cap in a vacuum.


It was worse. It led to one club winning the 2 major trophies 7 years in a row. We've not even come close to that kind of domination under a salary cap. To ignore the possible ramifications of withdrawing the salary cap is not a strong argument.


Has it? Or once again are you ignoring other factors influencing those things?


No I'm not. You are now doing your tactic of trying to swerve the argument away from its origin. If you're saying there's a better way then put it forward. But in the end some form of either wage/cost restraint or prevention of player stockpiling is going to be necessary. If we got rid of the salary cap tomorrow how many clubs could afford to spend more on players? How many clubs should be spending more on players rather than on club infrastructure?
Do we want Dr Koukash or Ken Davy spending another million or 2 on players? Whilst they might attract 1 or 2 "better" Aussies the rest would simply inflate current British based players wages. Now if that could be to a level where it meant SL could compete with the wages of the NRL or the opportunities in Union then I might have sympathy with that argument. But since it won't then I'd rather Ken Davy or Dr Koukash spent that money building their club infrastructure.


Yes, and some moved on and have had to be replaced year on year. Either Saints, Wigan & Leeds academies are just lucky or they spend more money on it than other clubs. Now imagine they can spend another million (or more) on first team players. They might resist that temptation. But the encouragement is to spend more on first team.

I'm all for targeted dispensations to encourage certain types of behaviour we want to see, the club trained allowance or targeting Union players for instance, but I can't see a way past having a general limit on wages without risking some clubs going stupid. I just don't trust most clubs owners to do the responsible thing and take the tough decisions.

so......1-14 people? Smokey TA...where's yours?

1. St Helens
2. Huddersfield
3. Wigan
4. Warrington
5. Leeds
6. Hull KR
7. Catalan
8. Hull/Salford
9. Salford/Hull
10. Bradford
11. Wakefield
12. Castleford
13. Widnes
14. London

Champions: Wigan
Challenge Cup: Hull KR (oh yes!!!)

But that’s what you did, you said we cant compare pre and post SC, then went on to do so by bringing up Wigans success.

But it is more professional than it was pre-professionalism. We may not have 14 equally professional clubs, but we have 14 clubs closer to professionalism than 1996.

No, im saying that we address the SC on its terms and on the effect it has had. Im saying that we don’t invent another scenario that may or may not happen to compare it to. Im saying that the proof of SC working would be the SC doing the things it said it would do. It would be the SC making clubs sustainable, it would be evening the competition, it would be stop clubs stockpiling talent (there cannot be any more proof of its failure to do this than the fact we have needed a different rule to specifically achieve this). If the SC was successful in these things it would have done them. It hasn’t. That’s why you are needing to invent a hypothetical argument to justify it. It is a circular argument that could be used to demonstrate the efficacy of anything.

We have come pretty bloody close, Leeds won 6 of 9 SL titles, appearing in one more GF, with big injury problems in 2005, 2006 and 2010 the years they didn’t win and appeared in 6 of the 14 Challenge Cup finals. C'mon this is sport, the bounce of a ball, an injury here and there makes a big difference.

We had more different trophy winners pre SC than we did post.

To invent the possible ramifications of the SC also isn’t a strong argument. The only evidence we have for your assertions that the advent of professional RL with no SC would have made the competition less even than it is now is the 4 years we had full time professionalism and no SC, were we had 3 different champions in 4 years, and 4 different GF finalists in the 2 years we had the GF during that time.


Yes it has. It would be crazy to argue otherwise. It is a salary cap, the one and only thing it actually does is depress wages, everything else it was sold on was the hope of a happy by-product. By its very definition the SC deflates wages, if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a Salary Cap

There are a multitude of options, some solely aimed at talent distribution, some aimed and wage depression, some aimed and evening the competition. You are again putting forward this false dichotomy. Just getting rid of this SC, wouldn’t result in unfettered player spending, and certainly wouldn’t have to result in the scenario you painted here.

Which ones? Lets look at them, lets list them. Who are the players that have left Leeds for a better offer elsewhere? Players Leeds would have otherwise kept but the SC meant they couldn’t and so they went on to other clubs in SL? Mark Calderwood? Any more?

Im sorry, but that just isn’t a very good argument in favour of it. Its certainly an argument you like it, but its not a justification for it.

If the Salary Cap nonsense is retained:

1. Wigan
2. St Helens
3. Leeds
4. Warrington
5. Huddersfield
6. Catalans
7. Hull
8. Salford
9. Hull K R
10. Castleford
11. Widnes
12. Wakefield
13. Bradford
14. London

If the Salary Cap is scrapped from 1 January 2014:

1. Hull
2. St Helens
3. Salford
4. Wigan
5. Leeds
6. Huddersfield
7. Warrington
8. Castleford
9. Catalans
10. Hull K R
11. London
12. Widnes
13. Wakefield
14. Bradford

If this is a prediction thread, then here are mine:
GF - Wigan to beat Leeds
Top 4 - same as this year
5-8 - Saints, Catalans, Salford, Widnes
Bottom - Broncos
Curate's egg - HKR, Trinity, FC
Grim - the rest

If Daints finish 5th with this years squad I'll be surprised and very disappointed

Well, it WAS a prediction thread, but like quite a lot of topics on here, it quickly turns into a dick measuring contest.

I thought, whilst going off topic a tad, it was a half decent debate about the salary cap, I disagree with Smokey but at least he put some decent points forward.

Anyway, to keep it on topic (ish) I'll add to my league predictions by saying I reckon Kevin Sinfield will win Man of Steel in 2014. Ironically I don't think he'll have been the best player but will get it as a sort of career award. Though I believe he has deserved it in other years.

If not him then O'Loughlin.

Huddersfield and Leeds look very good squads - Top 2, Wigan and Warrington in transition with the quality of players that have left over the winter, but should make top 5. Saints will be knocking on the doorin the five. Hope FC and Catalan are genuine dark horses (7 and

. And look forward to watching the Salford circus outcome - sixth. IMO - my top eight.

I think Tomkins will be missed, the overlap/expansive play looked very ordinairy on Friday night. Bowen a different type of player.

£10 for a charity of the winners choice if Wakey finish out the bottom 2?

Just seen the expected team for Salford at the weekend.

Good pack and halfbacks, backs hit and miss, poor at hooker.

Bench of

Howarth
Mcpherson
Griffin
Dixon

Is poor and much weaker than the other teams challenging for the top 6.

Unless they are injury free, there is no chance of them finishing in the top 6, never mind any higher.

I see you're still spouting the same rubbish as you were a few weeks ago, outside of our better known players you don't know what the calibre of our squad is. That said, I don't know what your squad fillers are like either, but I've never known Jordan Thompson or Liam Watts to pull up any trees. I can pretty much guess what you'll get from Feka though, the odd big run or good hit every match and then he'll disappear for the rest of it.

Since you're still going on about our poor squad, I think you'll Finder Noble choose Tommy Lee because he had a specific job for him to perform, and let's not forget any hooker is only as good as the ball his pack can supply him with. McPherson is a good player and Griffin's form a Hudds was such that Leeds and Saints were both after him. I'm no real fan of Howarth, but Dixon does a decent enough job.

Some nice spin, not sure why you are comparing your squad to ours as I am not confident about us finishing in the top 6 either, the players you have mentioned are solid but average SL players, on paper your squad isn't good enough to make the top six, but I guess we will have to see what happens, I will gladly come back on here and admit I was wrong if you make the 6, I've been wrong many times in predicting things in RL so it might happen again, but this is a prediction thread so I am predicting your squad isn't good enough to make the top 6, I wouldn't be shocked if you failed to make the top 8.

I've seen Lee many times, he us a poor player, at his 5th club already tells its own story.

I don't like coming on hear trying to say everything at Salford is amazing, because any long serving fan of the club wouldn't be surprised if it blew up in our faces.

However, you keep having pot shots at Salford.

You talk about the squad on paper, Warrington took on Chris Hill from Championship that didn't make him a bad player in actuality. It merely meant he wasn't a superstar on paper. So maybe Noble took a few gambles with the likes of Steve Rapira, Jason Walton and Greg Johnson, but having come the championship, the later have been holding their own so far. Not sure what the deal is with Tommy Lee, but Huddersfield fans seemed to think he only left them due to a big offer from London. Unfortunately for both club and player, London ran into financial difficulty, but Noble saw him as player he could trust. So I'll take Noble's opinion over yours.

put it this way,

saints, warrington, wigan, hudds, leeds and catalan have stronger squad than salford, its a fight for 7 and 8 between 3 teams imo, yourselves and the two hull clubs

Bump

I was way off

Looks like I was right about Salford, interesting to see what Lincoln Red Devil has to say. Think they will do better this year and should make the 8, but would be surprised again if they missed out again and it's a really tough league this year.

I must admit I am amused by those who believe that Wire will be any where near next season, but then again, it's the same kind of mentality that believes the Humberside clubs will be as well.

The only true prediction is the Sky team will once again utter the phrase " most open Super League" of all time, and yet the usual suspects will be at Old Trafford.

Nice bump of the thread. I'd forgotten about your kind offer.

I think Pinderfields Hospital Burns Club, would very much appreciate your kind donation.

Cheers.

What makes you think Warrington won't be anywhere near? They came about at close as you can get last year and have improved their squad imo.

As for the Hull clubs. I haven't really seen anyone say we will be anywhere near. Even the people talking us up are only predicting 6th or 7th at best.