haven't Leeds always had a more balanced wage bill with greater win bonuses?

Spot on. Wages at Headingley are actually very modest. There is no one on a huge salary and there is a very structured set up with players only climbing up the ladder once Hetherington believes they deserve it...no demanding of increases over there!

That being said, players WANT to play for Leeds. They know that they have the chance of winning silverwear and they have a fantastic set up. This is why the biggest signing for KR last year was Peacock, and I said at the time that the behind the scenes knowledge that he will bring to KR will be invaluable in the long run.

This is something that gets aired a fair bit and to be honest I don't really understand it. Surely knowing the length of an RL career (and sometimes extremely shortened) then a world class player like say Sinfield or Peacock would be able to demand a very high salary, now I get that Leeds win things and its a very good shop window, but paying the bills and setting up for the future must come into it.

I've heard the same said of Wigan, which is fine but the likes of Farrell must be looking at the wage Tomkins is supposedly on and wonder if he's worth that much more than him.

A lot of the philosophy at Leeds was instigated by Sinfield himself. He basically said, we can all move elsewhere and earn better money, but if we take a small hit to our earning potential, we can stay together, win a load of trophies and create a legacy. I believe his parents were socialists, which explains his idea somewhat.

Obviously this worked, but there were players that left along the way that didn't fully buy into it, like Calderwood & Diskin.

The Leeds club are also incredibly good at making sure their players are skilled for when their careers end. It is part of their contract that for those players without young families, must dedicate time in their week to either education or some sort of work experience. I recently spoke to Jordan Lilley about this as he is working with Alex Simmons in events.

Peacock obviously gained his Masters too, and Burrow I believe trained as a sports masseur.

Again, spot on. Sinny also gained his degree whilst at Leeds and as you say, they are very big on preparing the players for life after RL.

Contrary to popular belief, Sinny took a pay cut to play Union at Carnegie. He'd always wanted a crack in the other code and when the chance came he took it because he knew he didn't want to play at any other RL club even though he could've got a contract pretty much anywhere.

Its a great philosophy and obviously worked for Leeds, I suppose its a lot harder for clubs that aren't classed as champion challenging teams to get to that position. The lure of 'instant' better rugby, higher profile and ultimately higher wages will always draw them away. Suppose Leeds is also a more attractive proposition from a living there point of view than Hull.

Will be interesting to see if Mr Peacock tries to implement that with my team and also how easy he finds this in a less successful regime.

Winning trophies means money that can be added to each players salary without it being part of the cap. When you add up the costs of full support for a degree and other educational options open to players plus benefits that can be excluded out of the SC it can add up to a lot. I'm also sure that the Hetherington's are astute in their ability to make any given player's salary stretch just that little bit further with some cunning juggling of the accounts and advice on how to pay as little tax as is possible.

Thought watts was a bit better tonight.

Fancy talking about Watts on a Rhinos wages thread He certainly seemed to play with more confidence and not glaring at the ref. Wasn't Feka down to play instead?

Still gave away a stupid penalty lifting the tackled players leg and Wakey scored straight after