Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:35 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Before you advocate an increase in the cap, just how many clubs are maxing out the budget in relation to full cap spend plus 2 marque signings ?
The whole idea of the marque player rule is to allow clubs to entice superstars and for their salary not to count heavily against the cap.

So, how many ?

As for a race to the bottom, maybe it's up to the big 4/5 clubs in the comp to lead the way in enticing these elusive superstars.
The reality is that, even without any kind of cap, we would still be left offering over inflated contracts to players in the twilight of their careers.

Increase the spend all you like and nothing will actually change.

The top Australian players wont come over, as they will miss out on representative rugby and the same applies to any up and coming players so, who is it that you want to throw a heap of cash at ?

The player pool in Australia is huge. Not everyone plays rep football. There are plenty of quality players who are not quite good enough for Origin but are still very very good players.

Even if we was to include those who are good enough to play rep football at the end of the day money does matter.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:05 am  

puroresu_boy wrote:

The player pool in Australia is huge. Not everyone plays rep football. There are plenty of quality players who are not quite good enough for Origin but are still very very good players.

Even if we was to include those who are good enough to play rep football at the end of the day money does matter.

I know that there are 100's of potential players over there but, we were talking about big name players on huge salaries and the question that I asked you was, how many clubs are currently using their full cap and 2 marque signings because, unless there is pressure from more than Toronto to increase their wage bill, we are just hypothesising on stuff and nonsense.

I havent seen Leeds, Wigan or Wire demanding any type of increase and quite frankly, if they are "happy" with the cap + extras, we should keep as we are, plus some annual inflation type increase.

The min point is that the "superstars" of the Aussie game will only come over for a retirement contract or when they have mis-behaved and cant get a gig at home.

There seems little point about wanting a Cooper Cronk or Tuivasa-Sheck type player to come over as it just wont happen.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:06 am  

puroresu_boy wrote:

A competitive league isn't any good if the actual quality on display is average. The Championship in Football is a good example of this. Everyone can beat everyone but the actual quality of football is bang average.

I’m all for a competitive league but not if it means the top teams have to be dragged down to help the rest. Competitiveness should come from the rest making a step up. SL top sides are getting worse rather than the rest getting better and that does nothing to help the sport.

The Premier league is so far ahead of the championship because of the vast wealth inequality between the leagues. In fact, even the premier league is skewed heavily in favour of the clubs with unlimited cash. They also have the problem that only about a quarter of the teams in that league have a chance at winning the title. That's not as big a problem for them because it boosts all the clubs in the league financially. Most of the teams have no hope of competing but they have other enticements such as European football and domestic competitions. Plus they are the countries number one sport.

The trouble with certain fans with your argument is that it's elitist nonsense and a catch-22 for you. Your teams already sit at the top end of the competition, but when top clubs such as Leeds or Wigan to name a couple over recent years have struggled. It's that the competition is degrading in standards somehow. When teams that have traditionally struggled pull themselves up to be competitive and challenge the 'top' clubs, instead of seeing that as a positive thing it's somehow because the general quality is now rubbish or we can't spend more when we can.

For SL to survive and move forward the league needs to be competitive. Nobody will invest into a sport with only four or five teams battering everyone else every week. That's why we're still struggling even now. These things take time. I'd rather watch a SL that throws together more competitive matches over watching a few clubs play champagne rugby over inferior opposition. While what we have now isn't perfect, the 'lower' teams are dragging themselves up and becoming more competitive. Not every match can be a SOO banger because these things take time. The marquee signings are a perfect solution, as it stands, to attract that bit of talent that's floating around.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:25 am  

TheButcher wrote:

The Premier league is so far ahead of the championship because of the vast wealth inequality between the leagues. In fact, even the premier league is skewed heavily in favour of the clubs with unlimited cash. They also have the problem that only about a quarter of the teams in that league have a chance at winning the title. That's not as big a problem for them because it boosts all the clubs in the league financially. Most of the teams have no hope of competing but they have other enticements such as European football and domestic competitions. Plus they are the countries number one sport.

The trouble with certain fans with your argument is that it's elitist nonsense and a catch-22 for you. Your teams already sit at the top end of the competition, but when top clubs such as Leeds or Wigan to name a couple over recent years have struggled. It's that the competition is degrading in standards somehow. When teams that have traditionally struggled pull themselves up to be competitive and challenge the 'top' clubs, instead of seeing that as a positive thing it's somehow because the general quality is now rubbish or we can't spend more when we can.

For SL to survive and move forward the league needs to be competitive. Nobody will invest into a sport with only four or five teams battering everyone else every week. That's why we're still struggling even now. These things take time. I'd rather watch a SL that throws together more competitive matches over watching a few clubs play champagne rugby over inferior opposition. While what we have now isn't perfect, the 'lower' teams are dragging themselves up and becoming more competitive. Not every match can be a SOO banger because these things take time. The marquee signings are a perfect solution, as it stands, to attract that bit of talent that's floating around.

That's not my argument. In a truly competitive competition like you see in the NRL there would be ebb and flow where one year a team could finish 12th and the next year finish 3rd.

Seeing the 'big clubs' be successful or struggle isn't the barometer of whether the competition is a quality product. I am simply judging the product on what I see on the pitch and to me the standards have declined.

Now of course the solution to that isn't simply about better quality from Australia as the game needs to produce a better homegrown quality of player but it would help.

A few years ago I would of said the top 4 or 5 in Superleague could match the top 4 or 5 in the NRL and it was further down the league where the huge gap in quality was but now I dont think that's the case.

The gap has become much much bigger between the two competitions top to bottom. Now of course it doesn't help that over here there that we dont have the same level of player trading. Our top players play for the big clubs and stay at the big clubs due to too many clubs not in a position or are not prepared to spend up to cap.

If we have a competition where far too many clubs cant even spend up to to the salary cap that do we have that begs the question how can the standards ever improve.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:34 am  

Simply raising or binning the cap wont sort the discrepancies you highlight. It will just lead to a two-tier competition that will drive half your fans away from the game. The NRL has a lot of advantages over SL. National sport, investment, better media coverage, huge investment into grass roots, a massive player pool, and a sensible cap to name a few. We can't compete with that. The rise of the NRL has taken time and a lot of changes since they were second-class to the UK.

For SL to improve all over the park, it needs time and careful management along with investment and growth. SL needs to be competitive regardless of how you view the standard. The overall competitiveness of all teams with each other will then improve the standard. The standard can't improve unless that imbalance is addressed. How do we balance that? With the cap.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:39 am  

TheButcher wrote:

The system we currently have is not perfect, but with tweaking and time, is the only real way of keeping a competitive league. That helps secure the sport in the long term.

I'd accept that the league is more competitive than it once was though I wouldn't say it's looking increasingly secure.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:40 am  

puroresu_boy wrote:

That's not my argument. In a truly competitive competition like you see in the NRL there would be ebb and flow where one year a team could finish 12th and the next year finish 3rd.

Seeing the 'big clubs' be successful or struggle isn't the barometer of whether the competition is a quality product. I am simply judging the product on what I see on the pitch and to me the standards have declined.

Now of course the solution to that isn't simply about better quality from Australia as the game needs to produce a better homegrown quality of player but it would help.

A few years ago I would of said the top 4 or 5 in Superleague could match the top 4 or 5 in the NRL and it was further down the league where the huge gap in quality was but now I dont think that's the case.

The gap has become much much bigger between the two competitions top to bottom. Now of course it doesn't help that over here there that we dont have the same level of player trading. Our top players play for the big clubs and stay at the big clubs due to too many clubs not in a position or are not prepared to spend up to cap.

If we have a competition where far too many clubs cant even spend up to to the salary cap that do we have that begs the question how can the standards ever improve.

Seriously, when did any SL club bring a player over at the top of their game and not just seeing their career out - players who have mis-behaved or coming back from injury dont count ?
I think that you are just wishful thinking.
Of course when you go back to the 80's, we could plunder Union and steal some of their superstars but, that avenue is also a non runner.

It's all about the money and the level of sponsorship going into the NRL (and Union) utterly dwarfs RL in the UK and this isn't going to change anytime soon.

Even SBW, the "superstar" signing by Toronto, is an example of a player, albeit a very good one, coming to SL on a retirement contract and whilst it's right for the game to try and make as much from his conversion as they can, it is what it is and way over the odds as well

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:23 pm  

BrisbaneRhino wrote:

For me the code has been in dire need of a circuit-breaker to drag it up and out of the ever decreasing circle of poverty its in. Toronto are a risk, but to me one the game has to take if it doesn't want to end up a semi-pro feeder for union and NRL.

Other than the semi-pro bit, were already there.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:45 pm  

TheButcher wrote:

Simply raising or binning the cap wont sort the discrepancies you highlight. It will just lead to a two-tier competition that will drive half your fans away from the game. The NRL has a lot of advantages over SL. National sport, investment, better media coverage, huge investment into grass roots, a massive player pool, and a sensible cap to name a few. We can't compete with that. The rise of the NRL has taken time and a lot of changes since they were second-class to the UK.

For SL to improve all over the park, it needs time and careful management along with investment and growth. SL needs to be competitive regardless of how you view the standard. The overall competitiveness of all teams with each other will then improve the standard. The standard can't improve unless that imbalance is addressed. How do we balance that? With the cap.

Interesting thoughts. I'd agree to a certain extent about the competitiveness of SL, but we have Saints who cantered to two hubcaps and really ought to have won the treble in the past two years.
I suspect that the salary will start to work against them, in that the players who have reached regular first team standard over the last couple of years, will ask for an upgrade in monetary terms once contracts are up for renewal. It's either find a way to say yes, by reducing the cap elsewhere in the squad if your maxed out, or the lure of Australia beckons. Also, there's still only four clubs that have won SL in how many years? Yes, were finding different clubs making the GF in recent years, but the quality of our product is really suffering, with the recent GB tests highlighting the problem. It's a long, long time since the NRL was second class to the UK, and I cannot see us getting anywhere parity for another considerable length of time.

The salary cap is part of the problem with the quality of our product, and this is the reason that SL is more competitive. I cannot see an way forward where we have both.

Re: Brian Noble wants Salary cap lifted : Mon Nov 11, 2019 6:20 pm  

With regard to the NRL competition, all the clubs receive a huge cash sum to/from the main sponsor, however they operate a salary cap, the difference being once a club reaches the top of the cap of look to be heading above the cap - the club in question has to off load high salary players if they do not want heavy penalties against them.
Whether right or wrong, here's the difference, the lower 3 clubs get first call on those players unless they leave & go abroad. This is the Australian way in order to stimulate the completion & lower clubs can rise, which happens.
Our top clubs would not stand for this & the top clubs, RFL & fans could not swallow this !
This country & clubs will never match money from USA & Canada, their business operations dwarf ours, next up is Ottawa, then New York, so stop dreaming, you cannot match them ! Only legislation can hope to regulate & control issues, the problem is to what extent ! ?????