Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:47 pm  

Egg Chasing wrote:

Wasn't the cap meant to improve things?

It was and would have done if the sport and the clubs had the right management. Remember that the NRL has a salary cap as well.

The cap needs to stay unfortunately, but in a modified form. Something like your own youth players don't count on the cap at all (All French players for Catalans), five marquee players that you can pay as much as you like, of which three can be overseas players. Maximum of 28 senior players, with the remaining players capped at £2m.

That way clubs are incentivised to produce their own players (All clubs mandated to have academies), they can keep their own players once they've developed them, they can compete for stars from the NRL (which improves the product) and the big clubs wouldn't be able to stockpile players as you'd only be able to pay 5 domestic players not from your youth system at the highest rate. It'd bring an element of survival of the richest back into the sport, which isn't really a bad thing.

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:24 am  

The salary cap was a good idea in 1996 but it's not kept up with inflation.

It now really impacts youth development as the prospect of leaving a job on more money to train full time for a young person isn't that attractive. Plus at the top end the standard of superleague is slipping and we can't attract Union players like we used to.

Get rid of it and offer England players a £1M bonus each for winning the next world cup. That's the carrot.

If they don't win the next world cup they have to play for free the year after and/or one of them is chosen at random and sacrificed.

[Bullseye]

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Tue Nov 15, 2022 1:23 pm  

doc999 wrote:

Not throwing the baby out , but the standard of rugby in my opinion seems to be dropping across the board , England dont have much competition for places , most of the side picks itself . I think its time to scrap the cap and let the sport grow. In my opinion there is no way on earth this Oz team would beat the 1994 team . They have always had multiple players who are impossible to deal with , I just dont see that in this side . GB also had players that were impossible to deal with like Offiah , Robinson but we are having to look back 20+ years .

We do lack some obvious once in a generation talents like Offiah and Davies. But they came from rugby union and that avenue of player talent has been removed for some time. Even without the cap you'd be competing with professional union teams - not the case in 1988 and 89 when those players switched codes.

If you scrap the cap you'd need to put some other measures in place to ensure that clubs are still made to ensure they have pathways in place for talent so that one club doesn't hoover it all up like what happened when Wigan dominated. The reason we struggle to compete isn't because we don't pay players enough it's because we don't have enough players participating and so we have a smaller pool to pick from.

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Tue Nov 15, 2022 1:51 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

The reason we struggle to compete isn't because we don't pay players enough it's because we don't have enough players participating and so we have a smaller pool to pick from.

Those two things must be linked however.

[Bullseye]

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Tue Nov 15, 2022 3:38 pm  

Would suggest the problem isn't so much the cap as it is a lack of money in the game as a whole. Would removing the cap suddenly attract wealthy individuals who want to spend more on players and development of the game to get more participation? I'd love to see some evidence for that. I've yet to read of all these millionaires that are turned off by the salary cap.

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:06 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

We do lack some obvious once in a generation talents like Offiah and Davies. But they came from rugby union and that avenue of player talent has been removed for some time. Even without the cap you'd be competing with professional union teams - not the case in 1988 and 89 when those players switched codes.

If you scrap the cap you'd need to put some other measures in place to ensure that clubs are still made to ensure they have pathways in place for talent so that one club doesn't hoover it all up like what happened when Wigan dominated. The reason we struggle to compete isn't because we don't pay players enough it's because we don't have enough players participating and so we have a smaller pool to pick from.

This is my point , we are on a downward spiral . When Wigan dominated it was pretty much that they were the only profesional club who had the infrastructure , they all have this now , with the cap in place , potential players are choosing careers in the police and other sports etc , the game isnt growing . I hated Wigan dominating but you have to look back and think the game was played way better back then , we poached players from union , we attracted the kind of players you just don't see these days . If one club did dominate then other clubs have to compete to get better , some will overstretch and make bad decisions , but we have the RFL micro managing clubs into some kind of socialist nightmare where we are in steady decline . I was well in favour of the cap when it started as it was painful going into a pub in Wigan as a Leigh fan , but I was wrong . We are going to continue as a minority sport were the standard will continue to decline . Also the pathways for talent would sort itself out , if wages where lucrative , more people would be attracted to pay the game and the standard would grow and hopefully the fanbase . I also don't think Sky are helping , they are keeping lots of fans at home and could decimate the league if they wished , but obviously everyone is attracted to money upfront so we have become their bitches .

Any millionaire with a brain would be in favour of the cap , imagine any business with a maximum wage law , who wouldn't want that ? Doesnt mean its a good thing for the sport in the medium or long term . Imagine the RLF saying there is now a maximum ticket price of £4 , the fans would love it , but the clubs would suffer.

[Bullseye]

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Wed Nov 16, 2022 9:34 am  

Where's the evidence that existing owners can or will spend more if caps are removed? Where's the evidence that there are people out there waiting for the cap to be removed before they get involved?

Unless there is evidence for that what's the case for removing the cap? We might manage to get the odd signing from union?

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Wed Nov 16, 2022 10:55 am  

We need to run a salary cap based on a percentage of the mean number of youth players a club brings through as a multiplayer of their catchment area population. This will ensure we bring through more players.

Then, mid-way through, the super league competition should split into 3-team mini-leagues, comprising of 5, 4, and 3 teams, respectively. The loser of the top division has to play the second-placed team of the middle division twice and whoever has the best points difference by the end is liquidated.

Saints are only allowed to operate with 50% cap and the players are starved and fed restricted calorie diets until they fail to win the grand final. Once the hooter goes in the grand final, Brian Noble is splatted with a pie.

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:59 am  

FlexWheeler wrote:

We need to run a salary cap based on a percentage of the mean number of youth players a club brings through as a multiplayer of their catchment area population. This will ensure we bring through more players.

Then, mid-way through, the super league competition should split into 3-team mini-leagues, comprising of 5, 4, and 3 teams, respectively. The loser of the top division has to play the second-placed team of the middle division twice and whoever has the best points difference by the end is liquidated.

Saints are only allowed to operate with 50% cap and the players are starved and fed restricted calorie diets until they fail to win the grand final. Once the hooter goes in the grand final, Brian Noble is splatted with a pie.

Sounds a bit far fetched that.

I'd just stick with the £1M bonus or one is picked at random to be sacrificed option TBH.

Re: The Nadir of English Rugby League : Wed Nov 16, 2022 12:19 pm  

FlexWheeler wrote:

We need to run a salary cap based on a percentage of the mean number of youth players a club brings through as a multiplayer of their catchment area population. This will ensure we bring through more players.

Then, mid-way through, the super league competition should split into 3-team mini-leagues, comprising of 5, 4, and 3 teams, respectively. The loser of the top division has to play the second-placed team of the middle division twice and whoever has the best points difference by the end is liquidated.

Saints are only allowed to operate with 50% cap and the players are starved and fed restricted calorie diets until they fail to win the grand final. Once the hooter goes in the grand final, Brian Noble is splatted with a pie.

I love this, definitely marketable. I'd go even further and have Mayan-style sacrifices to the rugby gods (Saints) whenever a team was eliminated.