that players dont earn that much and can find themselves cast aside at 35 years old with a body battered and bruised and struggling to make ends meet. A position Messrs Lenegan, Caddick, McManus, Moran, Pearson, Koukash and Hudgell are unlikely to find themselves.

Rather than a salary cap that limits the total wages a club can pay, I would be interested to see something like the following.
You are allowed 5 players earning over £100k, a further 5 players earning over £80k, a further 5 players earning over £60k and a further 5 players earning over £40k.

No one team would be able to sign all the best players, which should keep the league competitive, but it wouldn't limit what clubs can pay young players such as Lilly, or stop players achieving a wage that is their market value.

It's early days yet but if Leeds find themselves consigned to a similar league position next season and restricted from doing anything about it by the salary cap, the number of fans arguing for a scrapping of that salary cap will increase tenfold.

The problem with that is that it still allows clubs to spend what they can't afford. Increase the revenues at clubs and the sport as a whole first before we allow clubs to spend more on players and engage in the kind of batsh|ttedry that nearly killed the game 20+ years ago.

And right on cue, George Osborne has turned up.

you are not only still putting the onus on players to protect rich men from themselves, but even on a technical level, the SC bares no relation to affordability.

The same successful purpose it serves in the NRL, and successfully in other sports. Unfortunately our ground breaking approach stood still whilst we rested on our laurels. 2016 now, and people running our game don't know it.

Increased level of competition? We have more of that now in British RL than at any time in any of our lifetimes. There is more doubt today over any result pre-match than anyone has ever seen.

Fans of rich clubs equate this with the death of the game. Even Salford fans are in on it now. There's nothing like hope for the downtrodden to feed the bitter resentment of the underclasses in their blackened hearts. I understand it is rewarding mediocrity, and not in any way a mechanism for increasing the level of interest through the hope that comes from a more even distribution of wins. So the same people make the same arguments in the same way that they made twenty years ago. And then remind everyone that it's 2016.

Even if Leeds make a million a year profit (I use that term advisedly as its a slippery sod itself), that means they'd need to save it for years to pay for major redevelopment of the stadium.

An increase in the cap would mean nothing for most SL teams, who are kept alive purely by the largesse of their owners. It would also in large part go straight into the hands of the existing crop of SL players. If the cap is holding everyone back, why hasn't every SL side got a "marquee" player?

TBH the naivety about the cap is incredible. It can't stop teams going bust but its far better protection than none at all. The idea that its some kind of capitalist conspiracy to keep cigar chewing suits in champers is mind-boggling. Most club owners have to support their clubs every year, not the other way round.

Increased level of competition is not what we have, it us a dumbed down competition of poor quality resulting in complacent attitudes and players regressing. That is not what the NRL or other sports have with a cap, and that is because a cap can still be in place for the good of the sport without it restricting the ability to have quality. This level competition argument is absolute rubbish, if you wanted that then you could go watch amateur rugby and pay a lot less. At least then you accept the quality is not what you are paying for.