When you look at the money that can be earned be a youngster/ academy/reserves etc.. in rugby league it's just not enough

You basically have to be obsessed with rugby league to hope to make it to super league before you can make a modest living as a sportsman

It's not good enough..
The salary cap should be raised to whatever the top clubs can realistically afford.

The SC issue is tricky. I think everyone knows we can't compete with NRL to even keep our own players,nevermind entice a half decent player to come here.

The problem is where does that cash come from?. Individual teams could certainly invest and promote better but that can take time.

Probably unpopular opinion but I think we need to drop to 10 team franchise system to split the money between less clubs and give security to grow the squads and not panic buy to avoid relegation.
We then need to look at other stuff on how its calculated with home grown / marquee etc etc and the overall limit itself.

Any changes have to be sustainable longer term. I dont think there is a silver bullet but we do need change.

A few thoughts.

Firstly congratulations to saints. Pretty much better across the park. If we had to lose I'd rather we did it going down swinging in the way we did. At least we walk away knowing that the rubbish during the build up didn't affect the outcome.

I know there's a lot of optimism but I suspect next year might look like a step back rather than a step forward. Our end of season has been a fabulous turnaround. Even the most parochial saints fan would admit that some of last night's goal line defence was good, hurrells try excepted. That epitomises what Rohan has brought to the group. Is it sustainable through an entire season? No. Or if it is, I've never seen it done. We need reinforcements otherwise we'll only see a toll in injuries and suspensions arising from the desperation needed to halt bigger, stronger men.
I also question whether our spine has the quality needed to lead us to the big prize. Big question marks over 6, 7 & 9 for me. Good enough for a top 4 side, definitely. But title winning? Given it's what we have, Smith has to elevate their collective level. Which in fairness he may be able to do, given thi will be his first preseason to work with them. My worry is that next season is a reversal of this, i.e. start like a house on fire only to fizzle out like a damp squib.

Despite immediate concerns over next year I remain optimistic. The end of this season has seen players and fans alike regain their pride. I've been to a lot of grand finals and while I've heard victorious fans make a lot of racket, I've not heard fans of a beaten team equal ours last night. That has been brought about by the players, good, bad and indifferent, and the coaches. It's been a memorable ride.

Are you saying you don't think Morgan Gannon is a SL quality player

At 18 years old too

I think Leeds still have some big questions over the hooking role. Leeming's a good attacker but doesn't allow the team to play with as much control as when O'Connor is on the field. His defence is also questionable at times. O'Connor looks a great prospect and a better defender but as we saw last night we lacked a bit of forward momentum with him on the field (albeit without a second proper half-back). Not sure that starting with O'Connor and using Leeming in a Dwyer-esque role from the bench is a long term option, but not sure O'Connor is the kind of player to bring impact from the bench either.

I think it all depends on wether Corey Johnson fulfills his potential

We've got two reasonably good hookers ahead of Johnson, and I'd expect O'Connor to get better with a preseason training in the role. Johnson might not get too many games, and its up to him to take the game on when he gets picked.

Next year will be interesting. If we have Sangare and Holroyd available we may see Smith change the defensive tactics. The 'rope-a-dope' quite passive defence he's used this year was a lot to do with the lack of size up front - we can't hold bigger teams so its better to let them make yards but hold the defensive shape. The problem is as we saw in the GF, a quality attacking team will beat you more often than not. The way to stop Sts attack is by being better defensively across the field, starting in the middle by actually stopping them making easy yards.

Our attack would look very different as well if we had Newman and another strike centre. I agree re the halfbacks, although Sezer looked pretty good toward the end of the year. Another worry with them is they seem pretty injury prone - Austin missed 8 games and Sezer 14 - and our only real backup is still very much a kid.

We do have issues with the squad still - Dwyer, Sutcliffe, Thompson, Briscoe, Mustapha are going but we still have too many who aren't quite good enough or are injury prone, or both. It might take another year or so to get us out of the hole we were in, which was far deeper than GH and co seemed to realise until halfway through this year. At least it looks like we are getting rid of the right players though.

For me issues with the spine are less about quality and more about depth and availability. Especially if the plan is for myler to be first choice fullback and Zak one of the centres, we’ve seen it only takes Sezer or Austin to be out to prompt a reshuffle. As good a prospect as young Sinfield might be I don’t think he’s ready yet and would benefit from a loan. Likewise Tindall, although his performances back end of the year were admirable I think he’d benefit from playing every week.

Converse to that I’d like to see Edwards get a gig as first choice back up centre. Johnson is the interesting one, wasn’t he one of the first new contracts signed after Rohan arrived?

Aside from Prior, who has already confirmed he is going, we also have Sezer, Austin, Tetevano, Fusitua, Bentley, and Walker (I can't see another club coming in for him) out of contract for 2024. Potentially a lot of cap to throw around, but also a huge motivation for those players to get on the pitch and deliver consistently.