Time to replace the NRL's salary cap

The salary cap is there for a reason - to keep the playing field even because we dont have revenue sharing in this league. In the USA the teams share revenue, visitors get 40% of the gate. All of these points systems would only ever allow the richer clubs to keep their stars, because the poorer ones simply couldnt afford to pay them more anyway. The salary cap matches the expenditure of the poorer clubs like Canberra, Cronulla and Newcastle. Im happy to abolish the salary cap if you are happy to see some clubs as perennial losers who may eventually fold.

Mushi I totally agree mate, with the success of the under 20s comp, we have almost an endless supply of kids coming through the system, in fact, there should be no need for teams to increasingly use the salary cap as a tool to poach the young players that have become successful with another club. How many teams in the NRL have managed to BUY success (No comments on cheating please!), a lot have tried and found that a player who is a star in one team can be an absolute 'flop' in another. If a cap is beneficial to the code, then why not cap the individuals salary. in a team game no one person should be paid 5 times more than his team mates. but that is just a utopian thought of mine.. LOL

There is going to a time in the future when people realize junior development is actually a massive benefit under a salary cap system.

Completely disagree! Some players are more willing to stay at a club for less money! A points system does not address that! It will never happen!

Clubs must get some reward for nuturing young players.. it is too easy for cashed up clubs to destry a team that has been building for a while... This year Sharks lost possibly the two best front rowers in the game.. just because they couldn't match the pay packet, If this club got some reward for these two 'TOP' players, they would be able to attract good players to replace them. No the salary cap is not working and it is obvious to any thinking person that it is widely being legally???. bypassed.

Phascolomis The rugby league draft was defeated in court and realistically a draft can become a confusing and messy system. The AFL have had to deal with the tanking issue as a result of the draft. In the US, the draft is designed to distribute the best college players throughout the sports system, an issue rugby league doesn't need to address. Ironically, the current AFL finals system is the one the ARL introduced when they went to a top 8 in 1995, at a time when the AFL used the McIntyre. Personally, I like the McIntyre becasue it really gives an incentive for clubs to finish 1 or 2, but in all the complaints about its supposed lack of fairness, people tend to overlook one certainty - if a club wins their first play-off game, they don't need to worry about any other result.

So in a nutshell, increase the cap and give a discount for loyalty, and most people would be happy.

The NRL's cap system is the best one that I've seen. It's not without it's issues but a lot of grey areas that cause headaches in other codes don't exist in the NRL. It could certainly be better. Discounts for loyal/veteran players and even local juniors should be looked at and ideally it needs to be raised to compete with other sports/leagues (though that depends on other issues, the next TV deal being the main one) but overall it's quite a solid system.

This system would be a guaranteed failure. First it doesn’t achieve the primary goal of a salary cap which is to cap salaries. So really it doesn’t pass the first test. Second the use of this system assumes that every player’s value can be perfectly judged objectively. I’m a big supporter of objective analysis for sports but even with my love of regression analysis I recognise that any system of evaluation should balance the subjective and objective, if for no other reason than the imperfections in the statistics used. Third it also assumes that values can be perfectly judged in isolation. Which isn’t the case we know that league is a team sport right and that success at any given moment driven by the individual with the ball, the opposition and the position his team mates have put him in. So now we have a new layer of stats to look at which whilst very useful as a tool for evaluation can not be relied upon as an outright determination of value. Fourth let’s say that for some reason you can achieve the impossible and develop a flawless system, it would be so complex that there would only be three people in the world with the understanding to actually look at it, and it would need to be completely stripped down and rebuilt every single time coaches changed their tactics (as different tactics place different importance of different traits and positions) meaning your cap value would be changing every week to actually be accurate. Now if it doesn’t overcome those four hurdles and it is instead just a simple ham-fisted 1 point for rep games etc all you have is the rich clubs setting up valuation teams and paying more for the players that are obviously undervalued by an inaccurate points system.

Points system doesn't always work. For example, look at Sydney club rugby. Randwick, Uni, Eastwood are always at the top. There was the ridiculous situation where Waratah players were in 2nd grade for Uni because otherwise they'd have too many points for the first grade side. I believe it would have to be a squad points system, and we would need to make sure that money didn't spiral out of control as it did in the mid-90's. The points system in conjunction with some kind of salary cap could work, if planned the right way.

Hence why Gould came up with his ridiculous idea about 'conference finals'.

It failed years ago but there is somehting to be learnt from other sports (including the AFL so there goes this suggestion) but it works well in the US and in the AFL, try a draft system again and keep a salary cap but it needs to be increased. Its success would depend on the clubs accepting a process which might be challenged in the courts again if not properly structured. And one more thing, doesnt the AFL finals stucture look fairer than the McIntyre system used by league ?

That's a more realistic idea than abolishing the salary cap....it really gets on my nerves when people say let's get rid of the cap. The last thing we want is the NRL to turn into the EPL....Same 2 teams win every year, how exciting!

I Like the idea of a points system. However, does it mean that the squad of 25 players for the year has a total points system, or does the 17 players on the field have to have a points cap applied? If it was the latter, you could see the richer clubs stockpiling more players and having greater depth in case of injuries, or to rest players etc.

I like the import rule Johnno. It would open up players being found in all countries, a couple of Frenchmen maybe, one or 2 Jamaicans. A Jaffa hear or their.

I agree that clubs should be able to reward player loyalty, i would do it like 100 1st grade games for club and you get excempted on that player. ANd believe me 100 1st grade games for a club is not that easy to achieve. And also have 1 marquee player rule, and overseas import rule 2 imports allowed with no restriction. And also 1 local junior rule to have excempted. If player played all his junior rep forty at club give him no salary cap restrictions. But need salary cap otherwise it will go back to the early 90's where brisbane,canberra,manly dominated, and the bottom struggled.'And i don't want NRL to be like Euro soccer where clubs are going bankrupt at the top and also at the bottom, in viscous player transfer market.

If i may, may i add, rugby league and common sense are strangers. My favorite line.

I agree, and it was only yesterday i said to introduce a under 20 cap as well, so teams can keep juniors until they reach 22 if those players are brought through their under 20 system. Look, the game is changing, but the rules are stale, the cap system is stale and needs updating. I like your idea, someone has to sit down and come up with a whole new system, including juniors. Hello NRL, we now have a junior comp and you have done nothing to add them into the system. ? The commish will have its hands full. See the problem i have with the juniors, you find a good one you brought through and another club can come along and pay top dollar because they have room on their cap. So your club misses out because of the NRL cap, its dumb, stupid and needs to be looked at.