Matt Cooper.
Matt Cooper.
Matt Cooper.















































Matt Cooper.

Would be more than happy with a stop gap centre signing, who would stick around for 2 years if he is of the right quality. Cooper or Tahu would be ideal still top players and allow us a couple of years to develop a replacement of our own further (Marsh or Charnley).

It would be great to sign a top notch centre in his mid 20's but there are non in the UK and with the increase in the cap in the NRL next year, their price just shot up.

Do not know when his deal is up but Larne Patrick is turning into one hell of a good player, one to watch over the next few years.

Must admit I've found him impressive. Tahu looks a little heavy and slow to be a centre thesedays, often played in the backrow at panthers. However he is a good player-very aggressive edge to his game.

Agree completely looks impressive everytime i see him. Really aggressive runner.

OOC in 2012.

www.skysports.com/opinion/story/ ... 73,00.html Very interesting read from Phil Clarke on recruitment and managing the salary cap.

www.skysports.com/opinion/story/ ... 73,00.html Very interesting read from Phil Clarke on recruitment and managing the salary cap.

Yes that is interesting and it makes me wonder based on the fans forum comments of IFL why the RFL dont do a Melbourne type investigation of certain clubs.

Do you think the club that plans its playing staff 4 years in advance is Wigan?

Its too structured. Many teams star players aren't FB or 7. He's listed a centre as one of the less 'costly' positions, but how could a team bring in a top class centre i.e Cooper or Gasnier on that salary? Just wouldnt happen.
Look at Huddersfield their biggest earner is a SR. He wouldn't have come if they would have used Phils model.

One of Wigan, Warrington, Leeds or Sintellins. All said to have good-to-excellent youth setups so could be any of those; however, which of those is Clarkey closest to so that he might have the inside track?

Exactly my thoughts!

But that's the point, how you would aim to build a squad completely from scratch. In reality a lot depends on existing players in the squad and who's available.

Can anyone please clarify how the salary cap actually works when it comes to players' win bonuses?

Surely the players must get extra money if they win a match or get rewarded if they progress further in the CC or Play Offs, or even win the GF.

How can all this be factored in at the start of the season when there is no way of predicting how successful a team will be? Or do players not get any win bonus or for that matter any extra money for actually playing?

Surely, that can't be the case, but if not how do the finances work?

The clubs tell the RFL what they want them to know.
The RFL don't check the player's bank accounts etc.
So how can the RFL really know what a player earns from his club whether it is salary or bonuses.

Surely it's not that bad? Even the RFL can't be that incompetent?

What about the cap being live?

It would be useful to know exactly how the RFL monitor the cap on a daily basis.

how can anyone track cash in hand?

They can't, hence Warrington's sudden success

They might not be able to but HMRC could if there was suspicion of tax-evasion (as indirectly suggested by others).

Watch this space. Wheels are in motion and the fallout could be horrendous.

Oh? Can you suggest in which direction HMRC will might be looking? More importantly (and somewhat selfishly), are they looking towards Loire Drive for any particular reason?

Even Dave Whelan said we wouldnt go down that path. He saw it coming.

I'd actually flip the centre and winger salaries.

A very good centre makes his winger look good.

The fallout that Rouges is mentioning is from the tax scams that clubs went in for. Image Rights, ebt's etc. The RFL approved their use but Whelan wouldn't allow Wigan to use them until, I believe, the latter days of his ownership.

If HMRC get their way some clubs will be in trouble big time. That the RFL approved the use of these scams without foreseeing the consequences suggests they are people not capable or fit to run the salary cap. It also call into question clubs who vote in a salary cap, then go in for tax scams that in the end could cost them untold amounts of money.

The monitoring and running of the cap has been complete nonsense from the day it was introduced. As I mentioned, some clubs could be in serious financial trouble if the HMRC get their way.

Wasn't this the Leeds/Wakefield test case that was mentioned a few months back?

This is great post! Totally void of any real facts but constructed in such a way that you think it comes from a position of knowledge.

The facts are image rights and tax brakes are available to sports stars! The HMRC don't want rugby league to have the same tax brakes for image rights as other sports including union? Leeds are the test case as they have a bunch of employees who play both codes right? Who get their pay packet from the same account, but one set of blokes get tax brakes? HMRC are saying the other blokes (the rhinos)don't deserve them! HMRC think rl doesn't deserve the tax brake unions get as it's seen as a smaller sport! Leeds correctly are arguing that in their catchment area the blokes they employ who are far more marketable are the rhino players, who best serve the promo of their business! Are you keeping up?

So basically blokes who no fooker knows or give a $hit about get tax brakes for marketing Fook all, but the blokes who are the poster boys of a business arnt entitled to the same tax brakes as their lesser know work mates!

Leeds have a history of successful litigation and guess what? The sleeve never loses! Leeds don't touch cases they can't win.

The Revenue are been made to look like idiots. it's employment discrimination, it's disproportionate penalisation of income. It's poor researched legislation. They have been hammered for the last few fook ups, over charging under charging in 09/10. This will be another smudge against their name.