Salary Cap : Mon Feb 23, 2015 9:38 pm
This weekend saw three teams working to a circa £1.8m-£2m salary cap play three teams working to a circa £3.1m salary cap.Whilst the first two were very close, is it any wonder we got beat in all three (despite the travel & our teams having two league games under their belts)?
When you put it in persepective, these three games are a much minor issue than the major issue of a player drain to the NRL. I'm not just talking about English players going over to the NRL, but also the quality of imports coming chosing to stay there.
On the first point; In recent seasons we've struggled to keep the Burgesses (and Joe), Ellis, Graham, Tomkins, Cooper, Hodgson, Crooks. Mossop & Flanagan had a go, Hock very nearly left too. That's almost a whole teams worth of players who at one point have been in and around the England squad.
On the second point, we used to have more quality a few seasons ago. We still have a few good ones now, but the overall quality is quite poor.
So, what do we do (if anything)?
Carry on losing players - expecting the media, fans and sponsors to keep/start caring as more and more of our stars look to the NRL?
Raise the cap in some way and atleast do something to try & stop it?
Are we happy to let it happen as long as the national team gets better?
Personally, I think the way to go is to raise the squad cap by roughly £300k a year, but also have the a marquee allowance whereby two players are exempt. The NRL have a marquee allowance, the MLS have a marquee exemption - so should we.
Before anyone mentions, 'well what about the clubs who struggle to meet the cap as it is now?'. Tough. Why should the clubs capable of spending more be held back by those that can't, whilst seeing their best homegrown players leave? Our obsession with having an even 12 team league is to the detriment of our game.