Allan Marsden

Parksider not enough time to reply in detail. I enjoy your considered thinking BTW even if we probably disagree. Just one quick note. Until the salary cap, We have always imported players from Union. We needed them. The 1920s, 30s ........ 50's, 60's, 70's etc The one point I do agree with you on is that unfortunately development areas will always have to have different player rules / quotas etc. However the caveat to that is if we had more players of a certain standard in the heartland then that would help expansion clubs and likewise without a cap they could sign better overseas players.

Parksider, I think that unfortunately is the nature of sport and clubs go into administration ad infinitum with or without a cap. So the age old argument by supporters of the cap that it promotes financial stability is clearly not true. Equally true that despite administration / problems etc; clubs rarely fold permanently. There is generally somebody out there willing to invest (waste) money on sport / RL. Simon Moran / Steve Connor are wealthy men. Do you think they would invest more without a salary cap? I would imagine such people and many more would sign far better players without a cap than with a cap? Likewise I hate the way an injury totally destroys a club's season. That does not promote high standards / quality. We honestly don't know re foreign investment. Football club were not foreign owned in 1995 either IIRC and given RL is a comparatively cheap sport, surely we would see some. We will never know whilst the cap is in place. I am sure Widnes fans will never swap the 1988-90 Era. Whatsmore Widnes raised the standards of RL in this country by doing so. If the bar is set higher then the clubs below will improve whereas if you keep the bar at a low level for year after year are you not promoting stagnation and mediocrity? Whether on advocates a cap or not it's timing was flawed. You cannot introduce a cap when supply is in such a deficit. Far too many fans grew obsessed with stopping Wigan and whomever and their jealous reaction was a cap when the reality was as Simon pointed out if quality players are few in number they gravitate to the successful club and reinforce their dominance. Shenton illustrates that. Interestingly because I think many supporters of the cap are of a certain generation they don't cry foul of Saints signing Shenton / Mccarthy-scarsbrook. The bottom line IMO is that if the supply of quality players doubles, triples etc then fans will have no need to be bitter and twisted and will get a greeater variation in the clubs that are successful and their own club / the overall standards will get better and better. Unfortunately EVERY club in RL served their own self interest and wasn't prepared to take a smaller cut of the SKY cake to put more money into player supply. IMO this was incredibly short sighted and detrimental to the game. Hence, fans saying oh club X is evil, club Y is evil but my club are wonderful are totally misguided. Until we address player supply, a salary cap has the effect of dumbing down standards. Player supply is everything IMO and I much favour a home grown rule over a salary cap. I have yet to see any benefit of the salary cap in it's present guise only negative impacts.

GDMM, The NRL is restricted by its own salary cap. If we did not have a cap and they did then we could sign players that we would not normally sign. Union 'has a cap' (To be honest I am not sure if it a genuine cap and just a token gesture) BUT the KEY is we could raise our own salaries which makes us more competitive in the labour market. At the present time young RL players are walking away. If we had no cap then they and some Union players would be willing to move to SL / British RL. No cap also open the door to genuine investors from the U.K or Overseas to invest their money in the game. At the present time no incredibly rich person will invest in a sport that prevent you using that wealth. These are short term solutions BTW The real solution would have been to address the player supply issue. You should never cap salaries in anything when demand for Labour far outstrips supply. Addressing the supply issue should have been the RFL first priority before introducing a cap. Personally I would abolish the cap but have a home grown player requirement.

Excellent post Steve I asked would it make any difference if we had a salary cap or not. IMO if we removed it then we would increase the the potential supply of labour but more important the quality of labour. V the NRL with a cap we could easily attract many of their best players if we had no cap and increase playing standards in SL V Union we could as we have always done sign talented Union players if we had no cap and playing standard would increase. So immediately playing standards would increase. Likewise, under the salary cap injuries to key players cannot be overcome, a team lacking key players due to injury suffers a loss of form and playing standards in SL decline. Castleford and Bradford are two obvious examples of clubs that have suffered owing to injuries to key players. The evidence presented in studies on labour controls within sports leagues clearly shows the importance of widening the available player pool. It seems obvious when it is said, but it nonetheless needs to be said clearly and often, the health of the game depends almost solely on the ability the game has to attract young players and successfully develop them into elite athletes. The importance of that simply cannot be understated. Why can fans not grasp the above concept?

Every organisation for anything / everything has it's own geographical boundaries.

He has Wendall but Rickey Bibey has too No my view is based on his time at Wigan and thus clouded. Good luck to him but I understand why Tony Smith wanted Hodgson.

Best Cheerleader, awful player

Would it be fair to say that after recent years when Yorkshire cluubs like Bradford and Leeds have enjoyed great success that the tide has turned with Lancashire (Yes I know the boundary argument blah blah) with Wigan, Saints and Wire are now going to dominate SL?

Terry was out last night and friends who were with him until 1 AM said he seemed fine when they left him. No inkling of the tragedy that would take place. RIP Terry

As Wigan finished highest in the regular season they are treated as the Home Team (Courtesy of the RFL)

I edited it Padge, just to be politically correct for our Saints fans. KC and Eamon were there to enjoy the last professional game at KR though

I cannot see why he would leave the Warriors given his career is on an upward curve

U20 Reserve Grand Final

Wendall I am always right I never bought the Mathers was hard done to be replaced. For all his cheerleading antics I think Hodgson will improved Wire by a significant amount in 2011.

A big weakness that Wigan or Leeds could exploit is Gidley who leaves the defensive line too quickly leaving a hole for a grubber kick behind him. An interesting aspect of recent games are kicks getting deflected and tries scored. It was either Jack Gibson or Wayne Bennett that preached to his team not to stick out a foot at balls kicked through when in the defensive line and leave it for the fullback / wingers to mop up behind.