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Good comments I think. In my view, a lot of it comes down to the fact they haven't raised the salary cap for years now. Top clubs have been dragged back to poorer standards, rather than other way round.

Just saying on twitter - even though we won Super League this year - I think if you compare Super League in 2000 to Super League 2010 - then I think the excitement has dropped ten fold.

Never have bought in to the argument that SL is better than the NRL. The WCC is heavily weighed in our favour and is nowhere near an indication of how good each league is. An NRL side would beat a SL side 9 times out of 10 imo

i dont think its just about numbers. in football smaller countrys in europe and the rest of the world seem to do well. we have 5 or 6 quality players we just need to bring more players upto that standard but the question is how. i get sick of the same excuses that our gb or england coaches come up with year after year

The salary cap is designed to keep crap Yorkshire clubs alive.

The quality has gone down since 1996 - our team then had players such as Farrell,Robinson,Edwards, Inga, Connolly , Quinnell , Skerrett , Paul etc all of whom are better than our current players and we still didnt win the league. It has spread across the league which is good , we no longer beta team 72-4 like we did with workington. And the kits were much better pre SL!

i'm not sure how we can consider raising the salary cap to a higher amount, or scrap it altogether, when clubs are not doing well financially as it is. where will the extra money for players wages come from, we'll just end up with clubs paying way above what they can afford in the vein hope of short term success, and not considering the longer term implications of spending money they simply can't afford to.

The salary cap should be raised to at least £2 million for those teams that would still only be spending 50% of their turnover, ie clubs like Wigan with a turnover of £4million+.

After all, wasn't that why the SC was introduced - this 50% rule was a preventative measure to stop clubs getting into financial difficulties ( like Wigan in the 90's!)

Does the 50% rule still apply to all clubs or can they just spend up to the £1.6 million in any case - eg clubs like Harlequins and Wakefield with relatively low attendances/turnover, can they only spend 50% of their turnover or can they spend up to £1.6 million?

Noble is right - it has resulted in standards leaning more to the "lowest common denominator" ( BN's new phrase!) and may in future lead to us losing more players to RU.

where would wigan find an extra £400,000 to spend on players, we can't make a profit spending 1.6 million, never mind 2 million. i do agree with you on the 50% thing though (i think this rule was removed a few years back), and it would give clubs something to aim for, a reason to try and increase attendances or to look for new sponsors, knowing that they would have more money to spend on players. but maybe we need to look at a percentage lower than 50, given that as i say, wigan are spending less than 50% now, and are still losing money each year.

Quinell was never a class RL player, he was here for the money and couldn't get away fast enough when he could get more else where. it was widely reported at the time he was signed that Chris Joynt wanted to join Wigan but this was not accepted as we had just about to sign Quinell. Typical of the decisions being made at that time by the board

I do think that the cap has worked in so far as levelling the playing field although only slightly. You can look at the predictions for next year on the finishing positions thread and most people have more or less the same opinion, ie Same top 4, more or less same top 8 and then same bottom 4. The parity comes more in the fact that teams have to work harder for their wins rather than blowing other teams off the park (does occasionally happen I know.)

The cap is useful in the fact that it helps control finances, I would hate to see any RL club go the way of a Leeds, Portsmouth, Southampton, or Crystal Palace due to overspending. However, talents such as Chris Ashton have been lost to the game, but how can we compete with rich RU owners with large wallets?

I don’t think that the standard has dipped, but it hasn’t improved either.

The cap in it's current form is useless relative to it's original purpose; that being to prevent clubs going bust.

The only part of the SC that did this was the 50% turnover rule, now it's been removed so it can be more easily monitored.

It should simply be 50% of total income, it would be much fairer and would stop clubs over spending on players wages. But to really stop clubs going bust, you'd have to look at more than just the players' wages.

Personally I think it's the standard of coaches that this country produces that is most alarming. Not wanting to bag on any current young coaches that are coming through but all the ideas they are picking up come from Aussie coaches like Madge. Where there any outstanding English candidates for the England job? I'm sure a few on here will nominate Shaun Wane but a pool of one to pick from isn't good enough for a supposed international rugby league elite nation

Unfortunately, a simple approach like this wouldn't work either, because clubs expenditures are all different. For instance, Saints have been paying a huge amount to keep Knowsley Road open, meaning that their available cash may well have been far less than 50% of income. A club with low overheads may have more than 50% available to spend on wages. Any system has its flaws, but the present one is workable, and has so far prevented any clubs from going bust. Crusaders and Quins may burst this bubble, and if they do, it will be interesting to see how they have managed to blow their budgets.

If the SC was either raised or abolished it would be easy to stop clubs going broke.
The "level playing field" has nothing to do with the cap. It is sky money that allows us to have 14 full time clubs. Without that cash we would have 4 or 5 full time clubs the rest being part time.
It's 14 full time clubs that gives us the competitive league. Nothing whatsoever to do with the salary cap.To stop clubs going broke bring in a rule that SL clubs must make a profit over a three year period or else lose their licence and drop out of Super League.
That the standards have dropped in beyond doubt.
Noble is right but the RFL/SL chairmen won't do anything to improve matters, they never do.
All Super League chairmen sing the praises of the salary cap so the chances of improving Super League by raising or abolishing the cap are absolutely zero.

Thats exactly the point, instead of Ellis, Burgess, Morley, Mason, Mathers and others who did or did not make it, going and developing? their own individual game, SL coaches should be sponsored (1 from each club) to go over to NRL clubs and work with their coaches for at least 1 season to develope their coaching skills, man management, plus different strategies and techniques that can enhance a players ability.
If you analyse what has happened at Wigan, it is not just the Motivation and pride that Wane brings but the ultra professionalism that an asistant coach in the NRL was able to instill into the Club. It is not the Salary cap that is to blame, it is the way the money is spent

Exactly.

raise it to 2million and put a cap on 50% of turnover. Cant go bust then.