Another promising young player lost to the NRL ??

[unapologetic pedant]

14 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Or it could be a situation somewhere between the two binary extremes of "pay our players poverty wages" and "bankrupt clubs by borrowing money to pay for magic beans". 

The players shouldn't be the ones that end up subsidising the pitiful commercial performance of the clubs and their ownerships. 

By tradition, the average owner of an English pro RL club only had one notion of "commercial performance" - pay players to win games. Nothing was ever designed to grow the overall popularity of the game.

As we saw at times during the years of Wigan domination, interest can wane if there`s a perceived lack of challenge. Permitting a few of our wealthier clubs to try to compete with the NRL would be ruinous, probably for each individual club, and certainly for our competition as a whole.

The salary cap would only be the main factor in our inability to retain our best players if the NRL did not have a cap. Our current impecunious players are the casualties of all the decades of short-termism and profligacy.

[Exiled Wiganer]

We have a predatory competitor, whose vision is to cherry pick all and any of our best players, ensure they can’t play internationals, and play literally by their own rules. We can keep doing what we’re doing, and slowly die a death, or we can try and change things, The only things I can think of are 1) develop the French competition, and 2) ditch the salary cap/double it/add a minimum spend. The NRL is a far greater threat to our game than anything even union has come up with, as we willingly collude in our own demise, while the players are (more or less) playing the same game. If we want people to be inspired to play and watch games in the NH, we have to dig in and fight back. 

It was not ever thus, and we have faced bigger challenges in our time. We have the greatest game, which is the only reason we have survived this long. At least we know where we stand, and the bar at which survival will be set. 

[Lowdesert]

2 hours ago, Futtocks said:

He's at the right time in his life for an adventure; young enough not to be too tied down with the various responsibilities that come later.

And if he shows signs of making the move to Australia permanent, his dad will remind him of the innate superiority of Blackpool beach over Bondi.

There will be times in his life, he wished he’d have taken opportunities, for whatever reason.  The problem that English clubs have, in creating a very well paid career from a young age, isn’t his.  If he gets the chance he should take it.

 

[graveyard johnny]

if that kid (cant remember his name) can get a gig at the knights then theres hope for anyone 

[Marauder]

9 hours ago, Leonard said:

Nah - the cap needs to remain to help out the failures in the sport. Rewarding underachievement and failure is the way to success.

Wonder what type of structure we'd have without the cap, 

[Futtocks]

1 hour ago, Lowdesert said:

There will be times in his life, he wished he’d have taken opportunities, for whatever reason.  The problem that English clubs have, in creating a very well paid career from a young age, isn’t his.  If he gets the chance he should take it.

And if/when he returns to SL, he'll be offered a higher salary, assuming things have gone well Down Under.

[Eddie]

9 hours ago, Big Picture said:

It's not the salary cap, it's the lack of money in English RL.  The lack of money is why the cap is so ridiculously low, and even at that some SL clubs can't afford to pay it.

The NRL is head and shoulders above SL financially, that's why it pays so much better.  Ditto RU.

No it isn’t, if the cap was bigger some clubs could spend more, the reason it’s so low is to drag everyone else down nearer the level of the weakest clubs. 

[The Frying Scotsman]

I have said this before, but if the Cap is in place to protect the clubs.... Then why not allow clubs to spend a certain percentage of income on salaries? (Up to a certain ceiling, but allow clubs who generate more, to spend more).

That isn't why the Cap is in place though ..... Despite what we are told. It is in place to protect these underachieving deadbeat clubs who have been playing in ramshackle stadia for the last 100 years and have no real ambition to do any better. 

The Cap is so low now, that any real quality players will simply be out of clubs' reach financially. Other alternatives either in Rugby League or in a rival sport, are simply too attractive by comparison. 

It HAS to change. 

[OMEGA]

There are actually 3 NRL clubs chasing him, it’s almost nailed on that he’ll go within the next couple of years.

[Man of Kent]

6 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

The NRL is a far greater threat to our game than anything even union has come up with, as we willingly collude in our own demise, while the players are (more or less) playing the same game. 

That’s not really true, though, is it? I’m also disappointed to read this lad is apparently off before he’s barely worn in a pair of boots but he’s not going to be lost to our game. 

The best players will follow the money, just as South American & African footballers go to Europe. It’s a fact of life. 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

Another way to look at this story is that it’s positive we have a young half back good enough to generate interest from NRL clubs.

It’s time to expand the marquee player rule on the salary cap. I’d like each club to be allowed 2 overseas marquee players and 2 English/French marquee players, with their salary cap value counted as £100k regardless of what they’re paid.

Super League needs more superstars.

[Davo5]

41 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Another way to look at this story is that it’s positive we have a young half back good enough to generate interest from NRL clubs.

It’s time to expand the marquee player rule on the salary cap. I’d like each club to be allowed 2 overseas marquee players and 2 English/French marquee players, with their salary cap value counted as £100k regardless of what they’re paid.

Super League needs more superstars.

Or reward the clubs for producing these young players in their academies by granting them more cap exemption,it might even encourage more clubs to take young player development seriously.

[Saint Toppy]

Of the young Brits going or already in the NRL Pryce looks like the one with by far the most natural talent and likely to make it. He has that swagger about him like his dad and the same running style thats so deceptive.

Good luck to him. Even if he doesn't make many 1st team appearance in the NRL before deciding to come back he'll learn a lot from his experience (plus he can then confirm once & for all his dads statement that Blackpool is better than Bondi  )

[OMEGA]

59 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

Of the young Brits going or already in the NRL Pryce looks like the one with by far the most natural talent and likely to make it. He has that swagger about him like his dad and the same running style thats so deceptive.

Good luck to him. Even if he doesn't make many 1st team appearance in the NRL before deciding to come back he'll learn a lot from his experience (plus he can then confirm once & for all his dads statement that Blackpool is better than Bondi  )

Blackpool IS BETTER Than Bondi and Bridlington is better than both!

Bondi is nothing more than an imitation of a typical British seaside seafront, with a promenade and a few arcades and coffee shops.

[sweaty craiq]

Radical change needed to attract money but the Turkeys will still vote on Christmas

[Scubby]

3 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Another way to look at this story is that it’s positive we have a young half back good enough to generate interest from NRL clubs.

It’s time to expand the marquee player rule on the salary cap. I’d like each club to be allowed 2 overseas marquee players and 2 English/French marquee players, with their salary cap value counted as £100k regardless of what they’re paid.

Super League needs more superstars.

The SL salary cap needs to be scrapped. If 3-4 clubs want to spend £6m on salaries they have to prove they can afford it and be sustainable.

Trying to keep some clubs artificially close enough to the likes of Salford and Wakefield (paying less than £1m) has taken a few years but it is now a cancer within the sport.

Not only do the best players and young stars want to leave, but it is stopping young kids wanting to be pro RL players - £15k wtf?

If I was a kid growing up in West Yorkshire now, I would probably look at the IPL, look at the premier league, look at Rugby Union and think that is where the money/bright lights are. My school doesn't play league anymore and my local amateur RL club doesn't exist anymore. It's not a difficult choice. 

[The Rocket]

22 minutes ago, OMEGA said:

Blackpool IS BETTER Than Bondi

Yeah and the name is catchier as well !! Makes you almost want to go for a swim.

[meast]

2 hours ago, Davo5 said:

Or reward the clubs for producing these young players in their academies by granting them more cap exemption,it might even encourage more clubs to take young player development seriously.

This, absolutely spot on, there's simply now reward, except a mandatory financial fee if under 23.

Reward clubs like Huddersfield for producing players such as Jake Connor, Dom Young, Will Pryce, Kruise Leeming, Sam Wood etc rather than a token gesture.

Give these clubs something to aspire to with their junior development that benefits the entire club.

[Davo5]

2 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

Yeah and the name is catchier as well !! Makes you almost want to go for a swim.

Swim in the sea in Blackpool

You obviously have never been there.

[Davo5]

30 minutes ago, OMEGA said:

Blackpool IS BETTER Than Bondi and Bridlington is better than both!

Bondi is nothing more than an imitation of a typical British seaside seafront, with a promenade and a few arcades and coffee shops.

But less donkey muck and less floating turds & sunken Tesco trollies.

[Alan Robertson]

1 hour ago, The Rocket said:

Yeah and the name is catchier as well !! Makes you almost want to go for a swim.

Having been to both, I also think that Blackpool is better than Bondi.

[unapologetic pedant]

42 minutes ago, Scubby said:

The SL salary cap needs to be scrapped. If 3-4 clubs want to spend £6m on salaries they have to prove they can afford it and be sustainable.

The most apt epigram in response to the above proposal would be, "The devil is in the detail".

If, in the audit via which clubs demonstrate "they can afford it and be sustainable", the angels are the RFL and the devils are the club owners, past experience would portend diabolic hegemony and doom.

[OMEGA]

7 minutes ago, Alan Robertson said:

Having been to both, I also think that Blackpool is better than Bondi.

I made a special effort to go to Bondi when I was playing in Australia to say I was disappointed and underwhelmed is a huge understatement. Now Gold Coast is everything you’ve heard it is, a veritable paradise, such an amazing area. Batemans Bay is another amazing area to spend time, it’s a beautiful place and far better than Bondi

[Scubby]

1 minute ago, unapologetic pedant said:

The most apt epigram in response to the above proposal would be, "The devil is in the detail".

If, in the audit via which clubs demonstrate "they can afford it and be sustainable", the angels are the RFL and the devils are the club owners, past experience would portend diabolic hegemony and doom.

Unapologetic rhetoric. 

[Big Picture]

14 hours ago, Eddie said:

No it isn’t, if the cap was bigger some clubs could spend more, the reason it’s so low is to drag everyone else down nearer the level of the weakest clubs. 

Wigan have long been one of the British game's biggest clubs, able to spend more than most others.  Their accounts have shown losses for a few years now, and declining turnover too.  Their total revenue for 2019 was 6.551 million £, which is down 490,000 £ from three years earlier and their losses over the five years from 2015-2019 totalled just under 3.1 million £.  That total is almost half of their annual revenue, and in just five years.

So just which clubs do you seriously think could afford to spend more than they are now?