You're using Hape and Fat Les as examples? Really?

As regards the others, Eastmond is so massively over rated it's not true and Smith came back very quickly. Though Smith is far from a top player.

And players going to the NRL is a huge positive, rather than a loss to the sport. The more British youngsters get experience in the best competition in the world, the better.

You forgot karl pryce and chev walker

What about all of the kids who choose to play football instead of rugby. Maybe we can entice them with wads of cash as well?

Does anybody know what the rl has changed, is it just a wider spectrum of players that can be used under the 50k exemption rule? We where talking at work today and off the top of our heads we couldn't think of any wigan player who would qualify on service(although O'loughlan can't be too far off) so have they just used that amount to top up tomkins wages, thinking about it if they paid him top aussie import money plus the 50k exemption money thats a bloody good wage.

Glad he's staying in the game, but something doesn't seem right about it all. Don't expect to have heard the end of the issue.

IIRC did not the RFL. offer Cunningham £100,000, or something like that to stay at Saints when he was approached to play union ?

Yes, as I believe losing these two players to another sport made our competition weaker. Bradford have never recovered, although you could argue they were on the decline before they both jumped ship. Or are you really suggesting that neither was a loss to the sport.



Whether you rate both highly or not, both of them were England internationals at the time they were approached to play RU. As I said with some players jumping ship works and with others it doesn't. Both players RL careers have since gone backwards.



Agreed.

I'd rather us keep Briscoe though, then have him go to Aus to better the national side.

Exactly.

I couldn't give a toss if Tomkins, Briscoe or any other promising, young player decided to go to the NRL, union or even Sky's brand new Floodlit Domino League.

If we spent as much time developing players, as we seem to do agonising over them leaving and as much money as we are seemingly prepared to throw at them to stay in the game, then there wouldn't be a problem.

There's usually one gifted player that Waldorf & Statler w[ia[/ink over each year. This year it's been Sam tomkins, last year it was Kyle Eastmond, prior to that it was Danny McGuire, bafore him it was Kevin Sinfield etc etc etc

Bugger the ones that have developed and want to go somewhere else, spend the money on developing more.

They are out there, we just don't have a clue how to recognise them early and nurture them. We still rape the amateur leaguges and give them a lucky bag as compensation. That's the first thing that needs stopping. When the pro clubs stop taking the p[ii[/iss, then we may get the amateur clubs working more alongside on the development front

I don't know if anyone has thought about this im sure you have, but if we aren't bringing anyone else in this year is it worth paying some of our stars, part of next years wages if their is still room under the cap. So that we can afford bigger named signings next year?

I'd assumed we are, otherwise we're not spending our cap wisely if we are at the top limit as McRae suggests.

I really wasn't expecting to be so underwhelmed by our recruitment.

Maybe they couldn't get who they really wanted so have had (a make do year) bump the other players wages up and wait till next season, that's what I'd of done.

Yes Saints were able to keep Cunningham and Wigan Radlinski IIRC thanks to a handout from the RL. Think this was pre-salary cap era though, not that that should make a difference.

and when hull went to the r.f.l b4 raynor went to union, the r.f.l said it was no longer available and he left

www.code13rugbyleague.com/2011/1 ... p-changes/

www.code13rugbyleague.com/2011/1 ... p-changes/

So is that up to 100k per player or per team?

it says player's so i'm assuming that its 100k per team not per player

So as we've contributed to the England team this year our cap for 2012 should be £1.75m?

Says the £100k is graduated based on the number of players. May mean we can make another signing?

The irony of this increased cap based on supplying players to the England set up is that teams will probably spend it on recruiting overseas talent.

Indeed. However I do like the payments, good that the team who developed the player get just as much.

Smailes has basically confirmed we have another £100k to spend. Thought these kind of decisions were made by the clubs?

So it isn't per player but just 1 per club? Because we have Yeaman, Briscoe and Houghton all developed and in England, and Westerman who is England.

Yeah, just £100k to each club that provides a player to the full or knights squad.

The report also says 'Made on an individual basis, the strategic dispensations will be twofold: one for developing a current ETS/England Knights player and one for the club the ETS/England Knights player currently plays for.'

So does that mean that the club the player is currently at gets 100K and the players original training club gets another 100k too or 50k each? God another unfavamable rule from the rfl.