I think most clubs simply can't afford them - except Leeds who want the DR / feeder club approach. Wire stated how much money they spent on the Reserves last year in an attempt to encourage more clubs to participate, but other than HKR it didn't result in much change.

It seems to get overlooked that you can't just magic a mature,experienced player out of thin air.All good players have to come through a youth system to develop , whether from a UK or overseas youth system & one day whatever talent is in our game at the moment will dry up. No club can afford to fund a team of expensive imports & without a reliable youth system the game will disappear & we all know what we are watching now is a shadow of what the game used to be.

I would like to know who the 5 luddite clubs were who did not vote for this modest increase. Pathetic.

I expect if there was a poll to increase ticket prices to pay for these extra wages there would be a number of pathetic luddites on here who wanted to freeze them and not let the game move forwards and keep its top talent.

Thing is , looking around I see plenty of mediocre and average joes, but don't see much of what I would class as top talent, certainly when compared to seasons past.