I agree with what you say, but if the money isn't their to increase the cap what's the point. Why is it the likes of Wigan, Leeds and Warrington continue to vote against raising the cap? Afterall they'd probably be the clubs least likely to be effected by an increase in the cap.

Well said JP.
However, as already stated, each club to play each other 3 times. Thus not compromising gate revenue.
Salary Cap. Not raised [iper se[/i, but to make the salaries of all 'home grown' players exempt.
Put's the emphasis on youth development, which will ultimately benefit the national game. A successful national team = more interest both from media and public outside of traditional RL heartland = higher profile = more success.
i.e. an upward spiral, rather than the current downward helter-skelter approach to the game that Red Hall seems to be content with.

Maybe not exemp, but I don't think their full salary should count on the cap. This should've been done a few years ago.

I agree with what you're saying to a degree. It may be a temporary solution, but that's all it will be. The esteem and level of competition, plus lifestyle would still drag British players overseas. Their cap will always be much larger than ours as the money that is thrown at their National Game dwarfs ours. That will never change. I can't really offer any solutions, which is frustrating, except maybe that the RFL should make sure its grassroots and heartlands are hives of youth talent and the structures are in place to increase the playing pool for the UK as a whole.

We may want to accept that our game will be second fiddle to the NRL in scope, size, talent etc That doesn't mean we can't carve out a strong game in the UK but things really need to change drastically over the short and long term for that to happen.

Okay, let's do nothing then.

Because that seems to be the alternative solution from quite a few people in the game.

We're so good at finding reasons why new ideas won't work. Pity we can't employ our gray matter to suggest some that will.

Hey, if I had the answers I'd be running the RFL now wouldn't I?

The reason it's easy to spot flaws is because generally the ideas are not well thought out and finding reasons why they wont work is easy because the reasons practically slap you in the face. Truth is, there's no easy option. There will always be flaws. What the RFL need to do is pick the one with the least amount.

And equally it makes no sense to further shoot ourselves in the foot with bad ideas.

There's nothing wrong with discussing the merits and failings of ideas. But let's not disguise this by phrasing things hopefully - creating a 2x10 system is just bringing 6 clubs that may or may not be able to handle full time into that world, dropping 4 clubs down a level, which may be good for cutting their costs, but also will damage that area in terms of academy work, profile and so on. Add in to the mix of the above ten a few further teams who will simply be stuck in limbo, yo-yoing between the two, unable to have any solid ground for long run investment. We do not have the financial clout to make our second tier an adequate safety net, just a risk to those already struggling.

In terms of intensity and so forth, I can't see this move making a jot of difference. It's roughly the same players in the same teams, just with less varied opposition.

I'm not sure that what Peacock proposes could be called an easy option.

It would mean a radical restructuring of the game. But that is what we need, or something like it.

One way or another, we need to trim Super League down, to concentrate the talent and increase the competitiveness of every match - because that's another big problem. So many games are dead rubbers (and not just between top and bottom - we already seem to have an elite league within SL, which is no use to us).

I totally agree that raising the cap won't help in isolation, but we could make modifications to it - discounts on home-grown players, discounts on RU converts maybe, central top-up funds on marquee players etc. We could also get our heads together with Australia and NZ and work out a more exciting and attractive international programme. Maybe bump up the World Club Challenge into something meaningful.

I don't think any of these proposals, or others like them, are completely impractical.

While we'll never replicate the lifestyle available in Aus, we can certainly do more to make life in British RL more appealing for top players. But is the matter even being discussed at head office? I've heard nothing to the effect that it is.

We're already doing that.

The point about dead rubbers, I'm not convinced how bringing in relegation giving less security to the lower teams in the league is going to improve these clubs in the long term.

I'm not a big fan of P&R either, but I firmly believe that we need to slim SL down to some extent.

It that means dropping a couple of perennial underachievers into a lower division, so be it.

That's all very well but how do you decide on who? Would they be willing to drop down? How do you do it fairly? What about finances and sponsorship? Clubs dropping down are libel to lose income from sponsors who want the top league. Making an elite competition even harder to get into by solely grouping the top current teams together does nothing to improve the British game in the long run. It's great for six or so Clubs and that's it. The same as it is now.

Why will they be better games, because other clubs have more money to spend, I don't think so.
Or it may turn into 'oh it's HKR for the third time, no point going to this one and we always put 60 on them' (no disrespect to HKR and not saying that we do/will).

I firmly believe the problem is down to exposure and promoting the games to a wider audience, do we really want the M62 corridor to be the only place you find professional rugby league. Should we not be aspiring to having a professional club in all major cities, some people barely know the game exists let alone there are professional clubs playing it.

The more people we get watching games live or on tv the more of an attractive proposition we are to sponsors. Big sponsors are looking for big exposure and by reducing the market to a more selective area the more select the sponsor becomes, let's be ambitous and try to expand rather than contract.

I'd imagine that we'd sort out the elite 10-team league on much the same basis that we sort out the SL now, the only difference being we get tough with those clubs whose ambitions are plainly divorced from reality.

And no, it won't be fair, but if the outcome is Rugby League in Britain surviving as a professional sport, then I'm all for it.

Your living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that expansion sides are the way forward. Why try to flog what is essentially a proven recipe for disaster and ridicule? Do people not realise that every expansion team apart from Catalan have failed? We've been to the rugby mad area of South Wales, we've been to two of Europe's grandest cities in London and Paris and seen nothing of worth. We've been to Cumbria and seen nothing but a few ok seasons for Barrow in the championship. Do i need to go on?

There's a viable future for RL and it's in the hearts and minds of the heartland clubs. It's in the heads of guys like Lenegan, Simon Moran, Eamonn Mcmanus, Adam Pearson, Dr Kukash etc that will drive the game forward. People with passion for the game that want to see it progress and give the fans that love the game what they want.

I think people are sick to death of the way RL is going down the pan. Fans who've followed the game for years are turning down season ticket renewals and instead cherry picking games. There's a gulf in performance and match quality from week to week and people are voting with their feet.

These 'fair weather fans' are the people that we need to get back into the game on a more consistent basis. It's not rocket science that people are more willing to part with hard earned cash if they enjoy what they see, get value for money and have a sniff at success. The quickest way to achieve this is by reducing the teams to 10 and concentrating what is an already diluted player base between a smaller number of sides. If you then up the salary cap we'd stand more of a chance of keeping players.

You talk about having less games in a season means less revenue for the club. I flat out disagree with that. If every game was going to be an epic and close affair which was played to a high standard then we'd see our attendances swell. Take our home game vs Wire for example that should be the norm and not the anomaly when it comes to game standard in this country. Your telling me that more people wouldn't tune in and turn up if every game was played like that. There's zero reason why it can't be - Why can't Hull FC, Wigan, Leeds, Bradford, Warrington, Salford, Saints, Catalan & Huddersfield all be power house clubs? All have the backing to be massive but all are held back by what is in reality Wakefield, Hull KR, Cas & London.

Ian Lenegan said at a meeting or forum that he votes for an increase in the S Cap by the rate of inflation.
I do think we have to look at our own club infrastructures and bring in some method of compulsion to it. As has been said we need better scouting, recruitment, training and retention of players.
The overall effect would be to increase the number of "club trained" players in the squad. At present the rules state a club must have eight in the squad 25.
I would improve this to have eight in the match day 17.
Take some time to do it so I'd go for a date of the 2nd next licencing round in 2018. That would give clubs who would see this as a massive problem time to get their structure sorted.
This would mean that a club could plan its future so that all positions on the field are covered by quality players coming through the club's system.
There will always be players who want out of their "Club" as equally a club will look to bring in players to cover positions where they are lacking cover.
We have to sort out our own future and that IMO depends on increasing the number and quality of youngsters coming into the game and staying in British Rugby League for their whole career.

I mean the average game will be better, because there won't be as many walkovers. Let's say Castleford, Hull KR, London and Widnes go down for example. Instead of:
Castleford (H)
Hull KR (A)
London (H)
Widnes (A)
Castleford (A)
Hull KR (H)
London (A)
Widnes (H)

You would get:
Leeds (H)
Salford (A)
Wakefield (H)
Warrington (A)
Huddersfield (H)
Bradford (A)
Les Catalans (H)
Hull FC (A)

Obviously the second set of fixtures are better games. Even if the cap increase doesn't improve the quality of the teams

Regarding income SL1 would get the same from sky leaving about £600k for SL2, 27 fixtures and top 5 play off with Sl1 entering CC at last 16. Restrict imports to 2/1 and increase the player pool by creating a logical FT arena for young players

A couple of weeks old and maybe a bit O/T, but interesting comments from Lee Radford regarding the plight of younger players nowadays:

[urlhttp://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Rugby-stifles-young-stars-like-Hull-FC-s-Jamie/story-18606565-detail/story.html#axzz2QtO4GdML[/url

If any one listened to Dr Koukash on BBC Radio Manchester, he spoke about certain big teams using "mechanisms" to spend above the cap, they didn't go into details and Jack Dearden posed the question, "are they cheating?". I'm just curious if any one knows what these mechanisms are?

That is one of the reasons why I despair - it is such a stupid system that harms young/injury recovering players only RL it seems would introduce something so limiting.Everyone could see what would happen when it was first discussed - and club chairmen agreed to it, that is the amazing, crazy thing about it!



It is not just the buffons at Red Hall but club chairmen as well who agree to these things. Sadly there seems to be a complete lack of long term vision - everything seems to be short term fiddles and fudges, probably a case of too many vested interests.

It seems the one group of people who do have some genuine ideas and suggestions and who care about the game more than anyone are the ones who are not heard - the fans.

Worrying times ahead.

My guess would be that he was talking about things like the allowance for a long serving player (10 years service?) that we use so £50k of O'Loughlin's wage is off cap (that Leeds could use for Sinfield, Wire could use for Briers, Saints could use for Wellens) and the thing that was supposedly introduced when Sam signed his current contract to allow a club to keep one home grown star. I think there may be other things as well that are all perfectly fine and are allowances not counted on the cap rewarding good club practices. These mean that though the bulk of the squad wages will cost full cap the allowed extra bits for eligible players will take the actual spend slightly over the cap limit at those clubs that can use them.

These are things that Salford cannot take advantage of as they don't have a long serving player that qualifies and don't have a player like Sam or Ryan Hall that might allow them to use the extra allowances. So in effect they although they can spend full cap under Dr Koukash they are still a little bit restricted compared to the established big clubs who have been building their squads over several years.

Jack Dearden is such a sensationalist then he suggested some teams where "cheating" as a result of taking advantage of such allowances. I was aware of these dispensations for long serving players and home grown talent but I see it as a reward for clubs developing their own talent and an incentive for the likes of Salford to follow suit.

I listened to the show too. Dearden's a journalist so his reaction (assertion) was to be expected really, particularly to anyone familiar with listening to him. The dispensations are as you say rewards for good development and retention practices. If those are what Koukash was referring to then it also makes sense of his "exceptional circumstances" references as the inability of Salford to take advantage is not any fault of the present owners. I still don't think they should be made an exception though.

On the plus side for me the presence of Koukash and Noble in the studio (and the bigger story) did prevent Dearden from spouting his gibberish idea (that he trots out every season) of applying bookies' handicaps to cup games (such as ours) and giving the lesser team an actual points start to make the final score closer.

Your missing my overall point - There is a rule in business if your not expanding then your shrinking.

Reducing to 10 teams will not automatically spread the talent pool, given the choice players themselves will cherry pick the teams they want to play for and to think there will be a Sam Tomkins at every club is just crazy, there will be 5 or 6 Sam's at the top two clubs because these kind of players know which teams are more likely to challenge for honours and given their talents the clubs will pay for it (with the increased cap).

To say nothing has come from expansion sides is madness, there are more schools and amateur clubs in the south playing rugby league on a regular basis than there were 10 years ago, expansion is not an overnight thing it is built over many decades.

Why will every game be an epic affair, the talent pool isn't that big to have an epic game every week regardless of opposition, no sport has that kind of league and never will have. We will be left with the same type of games we have now, some intense and some walk overs we will just have less games to watch.

So your idea is to bury our head in the sand and reduce to a small minority of clubs playing professionally and hope that ping pong doesn't make a come back and take over our television slot with sky.