I'm not against the cap. I'd raise the salary cap to £2.5m .



That would stop the big teams buying all of the good players and then buying all of the second best players and keeping them on the bench, and then buying all of the third best players and using them to make the tea (what used to be known in Soccer as doing a Chelsea, until the bonkers Arabs showed up). But it would still allow the best supported teams to field the best teams on the pitch, whilst still giving the lower teams the chance to build. It would also protect the clubs from themselves, as you rightly point out.



There has been a lot of emphasis on "won't it be great when all of the teams are spending the full cap"- well, it isn't necessarily so.

Quote ="McClennan"It just shows how insular the Australians are when it comes to RL. They're Jodie Marsh to the Americans ">Jordan.'" When you're the best, you don't adapt to copy what the rest are doing. The thing is whether it's a fast ptb, or a slow ptb - we can't play it to anything like the standard they do down under anyway. Still, as long as the league is close, and we can blame anyone else from the refs to the Aussies for our failings - who really cares if the product is sub-standard?

Quote ="McClennan"It just shows how insular the Australians are when it comes to RL. They're Jodie Marsh to the Americans ">Jordan.'" When you're the best, you don't adapt to copy what the rest are doing. The thing is whether it's a fast ptb, or a slow ptb - we can't play it to anything like the standard they do down under anyway. Still, as long as the league is close, and we can blame anyone else from the refs to the Aussies for our failings - who really cares if the product is sub-standard?

Quote ="wire-quin" I think the game is going through a transition at the moment from lots of Aussies to fewer, whilst being replaced with young British players. Hopefully once the transition finishes and the British player get better(older) the game will pick ">up.'" To me, the first year of franchise was always going to have a lower skill level, simply because the top players of 12 clubs are now split between 14. Obviously the level of play has to go down because we can't find top players to fill the gaps overnight. The + side has already been seen, all clubs finding new SL quality players this year, players who will be even better next year. Give gthe debutants an off-season and if they improve as much as the Catalans players improved between year 1 & 2 then we will see an incredible 14 team league next year, with the bonus being felt by the national squads.

Quote ="wire-quin" I think the game is going through a transition at the moment from lots of Aussies to fewer, whilst being replaced with young British players. Hopefully once the transition finishes and the British player get better(older) the game will pick ">up.'" To me, the first year of franchise was always going to have a lower skill level, simply because the top players of 12 clubs are now split between 14. Obviously the level of play has to go down because we can't find top players to fill the gaps overnight. The + side has already been seen, all clubs finding new SL quality players this year, players who will be even better next year. Give gthe debutants an off-season and if they improve as much as the Catalans players improved between year 1 & 2 then we will see an incredible 14 team league next year, with the bonus being felt by the national squads.

Quote ="Johnoco"Generally, I'd agree. I think this year has been very average and it started one or two seasons ago with this new pedantic reffing style. The fact is that so far, the play off games have been poor. If it doesn't improve, they must have a rethink and IMO go back to the top 5 play offs. A few years back, all the sky hyperbole rang true. It did seem to get better every season but just seems to be stagnating now. I'm not even sure it's down to relegation or not, it seems to be down to officiating ">IMO.'" Totally agree withall these comments,also a couple of weeks ago i got slated on here for saying that the quality of rugby this season has been very poor IMO.

Quote ="Johnoco"Generally, I'd agree. I think this year has been very average and it started one or two seasons ago with this new pedantic reffing style. The fact is that so far, the play off games have been poor. If it doesn't improve, they must have a rethink and IMO go back to the top 5 play offs. A few years back, all the sky hyperbole rang true. It did seem to get better every season but just seems to be stagnating now. I'm not even sure it's down to relegation or not, it seems to be down to officiating ">IMO.'" Totally agree withall these comments,also a couple of weeks ago i got slated on here for saying that the quality of rugby this season has been very poor IMO.

I'm not sure if i've any justifiacation in saying this, but IMO some of the traditionally "bigger" sides- warrington, bradford and Hull failing to make the playoffs have hampered it's impact this year. Although the league table doesn't lie, and certainly no-one has a right to be there, these team are more likely to bring a larger travelling fanbase then catalans, hudds and wakey, creating atmosphere adding to the intensity. I'm sure someone will prove me wrong with average crowd data etc but as a leeds fan- playing eg bradford in the semi would fill me with more excitement then some of the other teams. IMO of course icon_wink.gif" alt="icon_wink.gif" title="Wink" />

I'm not sure if i've any justifiacation in saying this, but IMO some of the traditionally "bigger" sides- warrington, bradford and Hull failing to make the playoffs have hampered it's impact this year. Although the league table doesn't lie, and certainly no-one has a right to be there, these team are more likely to bring a larger travelling fanbase then catalans, hudds and wakey, creating atmosphere adding to the intensity. I'm sure someone will prove me wrong with average crowd data etc but as a leeds fan- playing eg bradford in the semi would fill me with more excitement then some of the other teams. IMO of course icon_wink.gif" alt="icon_wink.gif" title="Wink" />

At least you're an honest pom.