Hi guys i've never realli used the message boards properly but do troll through them regularly



...anyway as part of my A-levels im doing a EPQ project and have decided to look at the salary cap and its influence on the game. I've spoke to various people around the game but i thought it would be interesting to get some of the fans views on it. If any of you have any view points on it that you wouldnt mind sharing, such as 'good idea, bad idea, too low etc', it would be much appreciated!



Thanks in advance

If you want a really funny view ask BrettKenny on the Wigan board

No matter what Brett Kenny and a few others say, the salary cap saved top flight RL. Wigan and leeds nearly went to the wall chasing each other and RL would be much worse off without them.

I agree but there was only 1 team doing the chasing in that little race and it wasnt the pies

Leeds just tried to buy instant success and failed. I've no doubt that if we had no salary cap in place Warrington and Wigan (probably still under Whelan) for certain would be trying to do that now. Of course as Leeds proved it's no gurentee of success but like Wigan proved it certainly helps when you can afford to buy up all of the best young talent (Gary Connelly,Henry Paul, Andy Platt, Ellery Hanley (before he was knackered), Nigel Wright, Martin Offiah all spring to mind) with a money no object policy and have international players sitting out or playing reserve team Rugby ..



Alot of Wigan fans hate the cap but i'd say they are the ones mainly to blame for the cap being in place. The spending they did was unsustainable and if it wasnt for a sugar daddy bailing them out we might very well be talking about Wigan RL now in the past tense or laughing at them grubbing around in the lower divisions in a ground share with Orrell RU

Clubs have gone into administration almost every year since the SC was introduced. The SC has not had any effect on whether clubs stay financially viable or not, that was its original purpose and it has failed.



It has also been claimed that it has levelled down the competition to make a competitive league and in that it has also failed. The standard has levelled down but we've not had a competitive league. We've had the same two clubs finish top and second and the same clubs compete in the Grand Final for the past three seasons.



The Australians make their SC work as the supply of players exceeds demand. Here the supply falls massively short of the demand and the end result is we have far too many overseas players making up that shortfall. If we'd not had the SC here as well as all the other restrictions on player development then supply and demand may well have met each other.



I've always been against the SC and always will be. The last Intl series once again showed that we are short of quality players in numbers. If we want quality players in the numbers needed then we have to pay them. The SC is there to prevent clubs paying large numbers of quality players quality salaries.



IMO the SC has been a thoroughly bad thing.

I can see both sides of the argument but I'm not sure how 2 or 3 clubs having all the best players with some sat in the reserves earning very good money is going to help the international game or even increase any kind of competition. Sugar daddies are great until they get bored or die and then a club is in the poop

The cap has worked to an extent, but it will work better when used in conjunction with the quota rules and SL licencing arrangements.



Whilst clubs have gone bust (is it 1 in SL? And that was a tax bill wasn't it?), how many more would have gone/will go if they could spend 100% of their turnover on wages if they wanted to?



It has spread the quality players round more than an uncapped game would have, it also started the needed changes to some clubs youth systems (ours included). The licencing rules have finished that off though IMO, with clubs getting a tick for youth development, it's even sparked Wakey into getting their act together in that respect.

I think that the Cap has definitely been a good thing for RL and I would not like to see it abolished...........but we are in danger of losing our best players to RU if we don't allow clubs to spend more on the cap and compete with Union.



Or we may not even notice the best players leaving League because if at a younger age a lad has been identified as having the necessary skill level to be a professional in Rugby they may be guided to Union by parents or teachers because Union pays better.



So for me its time to increase the Cap

But there is also an argument that says all that money Wigan paid for those players stayed in the game.



Also didn't Saints pay record fees for Newlove and Sculthorpe? Didn't they buy Sullivan, Nickle, Martyn, Groves, Joynt etc.



Personally I have always supported the salary cap, but have argued that it doesn't enough to encourage clubs to bring up their own players through their academy. Hopefully the license criteria and quota rules will help address this.



I've always believed and argued that players bought through a clubs academy system (particularly from their own service areas) should have some form of dispensation against thir salary for cap purposes (maybe 50% exemption)

We let players go as part of the finance package.

And Wigan didn't?

You make some good points about the amount and quality of players playing the game in this country, but that statement is just daft.



Clubs that are limited to a strict salary cap are going bust. How much quicker do you think they would have gone before the cap came into play? Crowds are up on the pre-cap era and still clubs aren't profitable. Were it not for the cap we'd have lost a few of the big clubs and probably several more than have actually been threatened.



The cap isn't the saviour of RL though. It's like sticking a plaster on a guy who's been blown apart by a bomb. The sport is so minor in this country that no one of any athletic ability plays the game. This means there are no genuinely good players in Super League and no one to use to build the profile of the game. The administration of the game is shocking (Lewis is paid a lot and has done absolutely nothing to improve the sport) there aren't enough people playing the game, the English team is as far behind as it's ever been in the last 28 or so years and Super League is an absolute joke. There are about 4 or 5 clubs worthy of a place in SL, all playing to crowd levels way, way below their potential and the majority of the clubs in SL are a financial disaster.



I would say there are enormous question marks over the very future of the sport in this country, the salary cap is one small piece of a jigsaw that has many missing pieces.