Perhaps if we had a salary cap for non playing staff in RL clubs including CEO's that might see the salary cap rise. At Leeds you see non rugby staff growing whilst the people who make it all happen have effectively taken an annual pay cut. The salary cap hasn't moved for 15 years. The CEO's especially the likes of Hetherington don't want the salary cap to rise - he actually would like it set at what the weakest club can afford. I doubt he would be voting for it if his own salary was controlled the same way!!

Ps the exchange rate shifting back in the pounds favour will see the player drain reduce and swing back to sl's favour.

It will reduce the drain from SL (its only been a few players in reality)

I can not see any top NRL players moving to England though.

There never really has been many since the seasons aligned, plenty of fringe Kiwis that have made a career in England and become stars.

As you say it has been a very long time since top nrl players joined SL clubs due to them not being able to play across both comps. I think this year has already shown the impact of the exchange rate with some decent players coming over.

The Aus attitude of if you go to SL you lose the right to selection for SOO and International caps is also a factor they don't travel, thankfully Kiwis don't have that hanging over their head.

except the best of those kids will be playing in the NRL or RU

Here's yet another radical idea.



Coach and train youngsters in good facilities with the incentive of the the opportunity to rise through the ranks, develop their skills at all level and earn a great deal of money as their career develops.



Or just throw money at a pension seeking, holidaying , past it , pension seeking, mercenary whose "loyalty" to the club and fans is based solely on the $ or £ they can screw out of idiots.



Recent history shows which choice will be made.

Its not even mercenary types. If a club was able to spend an extra million, the very first thing that wouild happen is that all the current squad members would be into the office asking for a raise. They'd also seek more by way of transfers to other clubs. Its fantasy land - and to be frank a bit unfair on existing players - to think that anything else would happen. The net effect of that rise would be good for existing players, but have virtually no impact on the sport - you'd just be paying more for the same product.



That's why cap increases (inflation aside) need to be targeted rather than across the board. Some clubs would manage the process well - they'd sign a star and maybe lose a couple of p*ssed off players - but a cast iron certainty is that too many clubs would make a complete pig's ear of it.

wow......you found David Hughes business plan for London broncos RL......it's genius isn't it!

firstly, i dont agree that if we had more to spend on the cap, we wouldnt bring in more better players and be able to keep hold of more of the ones we have. I think its self-evident that that would be the case.



Secondly, dont the players deserve some of that money? We have apparently seen a 60+% rise in clubs distribution, why dont those who are out there putting their bodies on the line for the tv companies deserve some if not all of that money?



Thirdly, it isn the players job to subsidise poor management. We have decided now that clubs can rise and fall on their own merit. If those clubs make a pigs ear of it that club should suffer the consequences. Its morally wrong to be limiting the amount of money a player can sell his RL skills for so that money can be used to cover for the clusterfsks some chairmen will make of running the club. To paraphrase Ivan Drago " if they die, they die". Thats the brave new world we live in.

Is it?



How many players who have gone to the NRL or Union have said publicly that money was the key motivation?



In any case, how many players are we talking about here? There are a handful playing in the NRL, and probably only two in Union at the moment who would be stars in SL (Burgess and Eastmond, one of which had already left SL before he went to Union).



The whole idea of a "player drain" is an absolute myth, and the idea that you have to revise the rules for everyone to deal with a small number of cases is madness.

Even Nicholas Cage doesnt publicly state its all for the money.



If players don't go to the highest bidder, why are we worried that one team would dominate?



And yes, we are talking about a handful, we are only ever talking about a handful. The very best are always just a handful. But the next time that England lose to Australia and New Zealand and we complain about why we have Matty Smith at half back we know its because one of the handful is playing a different game, and when we agonisingly lose by a few points and wonder why we just can't find that player with the x-factor to finally get us over that line, its because Sam Burgess is playing RU. And when Saints lose 39-0 against souths and we wonder why there is such a gap, we know its because they got George Burgess, we got Atelea Vea, and when Wigan get beat by an 11th place side from the NRL, its because they got Sam Tomkins, we get 100 year old matty bowen. They keep Gareth Widdopp, we bring in a string of never quite made its like Luke Walsh, Travis Burns, Michael Dobson.



St George had great success against wire with clever, well placed reverse kicks, Wire couldnt defend them. They couldnt defend them because they very rarely see them in SL, They dont see them because only a handful of players can pull them off well, regularly. None of whom play in SL. And we will continue to create hard working, willing, skilled, underpaid young men who simply arent given the tools they need to fulfill their potential and win but hey, we wont have changed the rules to accommodate those with the talent to demand it, and we wont call it a player drain because only the very best are going.

Yeah, increase the cap so teams can sign more average overseas plodders





The cap isn't the problem and never has been, teams spending the space on players not worth half of what they get is, however.

Raising the cap is only useful if we can attract more top players from overseas.



This is impossible, as the NRL cap is 2 million more, if a few teams in the UK could get to about 5 million for their squad then their overseas signing would be pretty remarkable.