Players are far fitter these days, but in terms of standard of rugby played, the standards have gone downhill dramatically.

Wigan and Leeds certainly monopolised the star players but I remember clearly going to watch Wigan play Huddersfield, Cas, Wakefield and Salford a few years ago and being tempted to stay at home to watch maybe Leeds v Saints on TV because it wasn't a foregone conclusion.
Now I wouldn't consider it because no matter which team Wigan play, the result is in doubt.

i think you could say the same for most teams last year apart from saints and leeds on their day.
this year there are 2 definite whipping boys and i think saints have slipped closer the the rest.

Please Listen to the other side of the argument



Nobody is saying there shouldn't be a salary Cap (Apart from maybe BK

)

What people are saying is that it should be a % of the Turnover of a Particular club i.e

If a Club Turns over 10M Why can't they spend 5M
If a Club Turns over 4M They Spend 2M

Something similar to that would encourage clubs to concentrate on Building there Business/Club rather than Leeching off the other clubs with Better Youth Policies etc.

There are Numerous other suggestions Like Rogues who says a % of a Players Wages Shouldn't be counted if he was Club trained encouraging the use of more Home Grown Players.

It's a shame it will never happen, then we could prove you are Soooooooooo Wrong!

I wouldn't say about the Turnover, as bigger clubs now are always going to have the advantage, with more fans and more retail revenue.

However, I would definitely say that Home grown players shouldn't count on the salary cap. I would also bring in a stipulation that states only a certain amount of money can be spent on the wages of foreign players.

Trust Rogues to bring Saints into it once again.

His fascination of everything Saints is becoming scary.

It must be his age.

Ha Ha HA Ha Ha!
I must visit Doctors as My sides are Splitting!

Take Lyon & Gidley out of the Saints team of the last 4 years & There would have been drastically different outcomes to many many games!

Bearing in mind the Overall improvement of our competition can surely only be tested by our National Sides performances would you like to tell me How we are improving??????

as it stands now, how many clubs have turnover of more than say £6m - i will give you a clue, the answer is Leeds. All other clubs would be spendingn a similar level to that they are on now, to varying degrees.

we didnt beat the Aussies back in the days of non-salary cap.

We didn't get embarrassed 52-4 though.

Don't totally disagree, my only point being that as it is we have had a Stagnant Competition in terms of Quality for the last 3 or 4 years and I feel "Something" needs to be done. I have a few thoughts and so do many others.

Hypothetical

Leeds Pick up 7 or 8 bad injuries, start losing many,many games, crowds drop off, they lose revenue even though they may have had the Business foresight to Make Millions over the past 3/4/5 years they can't use this to reinvest in playing standards to keep their success up on the field etc.

Sorry as this pre 96 (And You may not obviously count this as Ever Happening!) but didn't we beat them 88/90/92/94 etc and didn't we consistantly challenge them closely??? Avoiding Mullerings almost Completely!

And what incentive have they got to improve on that ???

it's a double edged sword for me. standards in top flight league have gone backwards over here whilst in the NRL theyve improved in all areas; fitness, technique, tactics, coaching.

Until the cap is adjusted to run more along these lines, the game will stagnate.

There is absolutely no incentive for clubs like Wakefield & Salford to do anything currently, other than curb the coat-tales of the likes of Wigan & Leeds.

Celtic really put those clubs to shame in many ways.

That's a very good point yeah. It is a handicap that they cant spent what they have earnt. I think maybe they should be allowed to spend at least a percentage of what they had made over the years to renew their squad and cover injuries.

You'll get shot for agreeing with a Wiganner!

Ahh, It wont be the 1st time. That's why were champions after all!

Even though that was a "World Champions" Award you can't claim it to win your Bet (Even though it is only just behind The "Hubcap" in terms of Importance!

).

Plus it was mainly the Wiganners Won it for us!

last time we beat them in a series was 70's i think?

If you want to go on single wins within competitions, we beat them in 2006 (during the salary cap era) i.e. once, which is exactly the same as 88/90/92/94.

In 2004 we beat them in the Tri-Nations.

In 2003 we got the closest in a long time to a series win (13 points over the 3 games, even though we lost the games).

I dont recall a golden age in the 80's and early 90's where GB regularly won series after series and world cup after world cup. We have pretty much stayed a constant level behind them for 30 years.

How about instead of saying we can give allowances for home grown players, say that any non british (or french) players' wages are counted at 150% for salary cap purposes? This would be a great incentive to play british talent.

I also think the cap should be 50% of turnover, which would allow leeds around £3 million, and saints around £2.5million, not sure on wigans turnover, but it would help the teams who bring up the most british talent, Wigan, Leeds, Saints and Hull - the new big 4

I seem to recall some very tight series with a couple of World cup finals contested to pretty close scorelines!

After spending near on £13,000 watching the current shower Down under last year I can say IMHO that your statement of "We have pretty much stayed a constant level behind them for 30 years."

A Classic!

Surely that would open up a biggger gap between the teams than there is now.

We should wait afew more seasons before changing things, its going well so far this year, there has been no huge scores really like 70-80 nil the highest is probably our win over Bradford, even Celtic are competing in games. If we are going to change the salary cap then the ideal time would be when the next licences come through in 3 years time.

No we don't. Stop making things up to prove your contrived and somewhat barmy point.

That Leeds team was garbage compared to the current one and a max of four would get into today's team, being generous.

Of course, if you compare one of your greatest sides to you current outfit that is a different matter.