www.espn.co.uk/rugbyunion/sport/story/93037.html

www.espn.co.uk/rugbyunion/sport/story/93037.html

Parts of this should be looked into by the rfl.

Union do have the right idea giving an allowance for academy players.
This idea has been going around RL since the SC was introduced, it doesn't take much imagination to understand why it has never been introduced in our game.

Pathetic. They can't develop their own talent so they try to steal ours.

Cue people saying certain clubs dont spend the cap, etc. They should get their s in gear and get people through the gates to get money and generate interest, therefore maybe attracting more people to play creating a bigger pool of talent.

Garbage, lazy clubs are holding our game back

The RFL really need to get with the times and look into things like RU is doing like in the link and stop some of our talent being robbed

Let's hope every one of them goes for a 'marquee player' of Kyle Eastmond's standard.

It would be a toss-up which runs out first - the money or the space on their treatment benches.

In fairness we used to that to them time and time and time and time and time again so we have absolutely no grounds to moan about it. We do need to combat it as best we can though.

Amen to that. If this doesn't set alarm bells ringing at Red Hall then nothing will

That's a bit of a one-sided viewpoint. They needed to up their own SC to stop their own talent-draining problems with French RU, which is uncapped at present

The RFL needs to do something and quickly.

The thing is most RU clubs run at huge losses and cant even afford the wages they are paying at the moment. As a result many RU clubs do not want the salary cap raised. Teams like Exeter, Wasps, Worcester, Sale, Newcastle, Bath, Gloucester are only were they are because of wealthy owners who heavily subsidise them to the tune of millions. Rugby League clubs, bar maybe Warrington, dont have these rich benefators who are prepared to lose millions each year.

The cap is a maximum. Clubs that don't generate their own income streams won't have the money available to spend it, so they need to get their act together, get bums on seats, sell shirts and burgers and maybe then we'll see RL players earning enough not to want to go elsewhere.

Yeh I agree with this to an extent, but there has to be something in place where clubs have the right to keep hold of the players they have spent years developing. People dont want the cap raising so that the rich teams can create a team of super stars while the lower clubs cant compete. Its not fair on the teams producing top class youngsters who then have to either get rid of them or watch on helplessly as they are poached to RU because their hands are tied due to the cap. This is what happened at Melbourne, they were effectively punished because they had developed Slater, Inglis, Smith, Folau, Cronk etc and to pay them what they were worth, they broke the SC.

The talk of "talent distribution" throughout the league is right but it shouldnt be up to only a few teams to develop enough good young players for everyone.

Clubs in the Aviva Premiership will have one player excluded from the cap from 2012.

The cap will increase from £4 to £4.26 with academy credits taking it to the final sum of £4.5

Think the RFL need to pull there thumb out quick.

We need similar guidlines in League asap

The clubs themselves decide if the salary cap should be increased not the RFL

The salary cap needs to be based on what we can afford and what makes it fair for all clubs

But as Ian Lenagan stated at the fan's forum - It should increase in line with inflation. Otherwise it is technically DEcreasing year on year.

Trouble is, the little and/or poor clubs keep voting against any increase.

This will eventually kill the sport

Yet again, the big clubs (Wigan, Warrington, Saints, Leeds, Hull, Hull KR, Huddersfield) are the top clubs. With the cream of the British game coming from it. I bet you could pick a whole England squad from those teams and it would be very competitive.

However, clubs like (Castleford, Wakefield, Crusaders, Harlequins, Bradford) are all doing poorly. They generally have poor stadiums, poor squads, poor games, and ultimately poor crowds.

I think it is time for the RFL to realise this and make it so that the teams with big attendances and strong youth developments can be helped. And the teams with poor attendances and poor youth systems can be let free.

You're right. This is outrageous. If the boot was on the other foot, you'd never catch Rugby League consistently buying young Union players from say Wales for over 100 years or anything.

Boston, Sullivan, Quinnell, Gibbs, Davies, Young, Devereux, Bateman, Tatupu, Botica, Gallagher, Innes, Offiah...

best there was

best what?

And didn't IL mention a new rule about Union players wouldn't count on the cap for their first season in league?

Union people always complained to me about RL taking their best players, which we did for the most part. My reply was that it was up to them to sort their problem out.
With circumstances reversed my feelings are the same, if RL now has a problem it is up to us to sort it out. Don't blame Union!

Down Under, Gallop admitted that after the Canterbury and Melbourne cap scandals the system had failed and they were looking to replace the cap with a better system which would be transparent as well as take their game forward.
We should do the same and quickly. What we don't need is ending up adopting an NRL system into SL as a panic measure as we haven't worked out something better than the SC for ourselves.

tuigamala..george fairburn?

The great players who changed and broke away from the Union in 1895 were all "former" Union players.
Never knock Union players who change to League, it was they who started it all!