There was a lot of talk for the first couple of years after the salary cap was brought in about the benefits and drawbacks of it and people basically choose their side of the argument based on the team they supported but I don't think there is any doubt now that it hasn't worked. Sadly most teams are backed that far in to a corner financially that they cannot choose to change it or remove it now. There was never any issue with having a salary cap but to not have some sort of yearly uplift built in has totally stunted the growth of the competition. It has always been used as a tool of levelling down and that can never be seen as a positive. Each and every club should be striving to catch up with the best teams but we've built a culture of trying to drag the best teams down to other clubs levels. The clubs wanting to keep the salary cap down over the past couple of decades would've argued at the start that it would lead to varied winners of the trophies on offer and that it would safeguard clubs financially. It has done neither!!

[quote="Stu M":1o9qllf2]Spot on. Clearly his first consideration is Wigan but I do wonder if he would have the same opinion without Danson's wealth behind the club and when Wigan were posting significant losses.[/quote:1o9qllf2] In fairness to Radlinski I think he hit the right tone of acknowledging that we need a cap in place while also highlighting the absolute lunacy of any suggestion that it is lowered. Any club wanting to lower the salary cap doesn't need to bring other clubs down to the level they think is affordable for them, they just need to spend what they can afford themselves. I'm sure other people in Radlinski's (privileged) position, where he has a billionaire owner would just say 'lets get rid of the cap altogether' but he knows that isn't right for the game as a whole, even if it would make his job much easier.

[quote="NickyKiss":1e281qvd] The clubs wanting to keep the salary cap down over the past couple of decades would've argued at the start that it would lead to varied winners of the trophies on offer and that it would safeguard clubs financially. It has done neither!![/quote:1e281qvd] Do you not think that this is more to do with the quality of the youth systems at the clubs that win trophies and the sheer number of home-grown players?

[quote="Stu M":2klviide]Do you not think that this is more to do with the quality of the youth systems at the clubs that win trophies and the sheer number of home-grown players?[/quote:2klviide] Clearly the clubs wanting a salary cap initially and then always pushing to keep it down did not see that one coming. You only need to look at the list of Grand Final winners to see the secret to success when there is a salary cap but many clubs haven't ever taken the hint. If those clubs don't invest in youth, don't have success, even with a stagnant salary cap and still see clubs getting in to financial difficulty you'd like to think they have realised it hasn't worked but then their solution to help the whole sport is to just lower it further, rather than taking accountability for their own spend. Lowering the salary cap will just push us closer to going back to being a semi pro sport. In truth, I think a couple of the clubs would be happy enough with that.

[quote="Stu M":1di02qke]Do you not think that this is more to do with the quality of the youth systems at the clubs that win trophies and the sheer number of home-grown players?[/quote:1di02qke] i'd probably go further and say lack of, instead of quality of IMO, there should be as part of the IMG gradings a full club structure in place to score top points, for example 1st team, reserves, academy (whatever form that may be), scholarship, ladies and disability. Whilst Wigan, Saints and Leeds can keep producing players, surely all clubs must have that pipeline into the game for our youngsters. It shows with dual registration, that the structure below isnt working, as our clubs are constantly needing to send players on the 1st team fringes to championship sides to get game time, and IMO that's all down to the lack of a competitive structure at the levels below 1st team. I know our sport isnt cash rich, but surely a pipeline of players coming into a clubs 1st team would initially bring player outlay down as they are typically on a lower salary when they make their way into the 1st team, instead of constantly signing 1st team players from elsewhere, and then potentially income if they sell players (albeit, this is few and far between in RL at the minute)