The player point system needs to replace the salary cap

For players I would fight this to the death in the courts as it creates huge career uncertainty and arbitrarily restricts my ability to earn a fair wage and chose my employer. Young guy A basically the same as young guy B. Young guy A gets pulled in to cover an injury in the NZ test team for experience now young guy A chews up 2/3 more PPS for effectively the same player making him less employable because he represented his country a little early? We think that is a good thing? For older players as they lose athleticism and become less effective they become more expensive, especially if they were the kind of bottom tier of rep player carrying loading. You will shorten careers with this. You’re also not really giving me the ability as a player to “choose”, I should have the right to accept a moderate hair cut to keep playing with a particular group or in my home town.

One the fairness thing. Sorry but no, all this will lead to is changing how players are valued not the ability to find better value. You say the system needs refining, it’s far more than that. I think it needs to be burnt to the ground. - ESL/NRL experience being perfectly equal what the… - The assumption players are unlike any other human beings and never peak athletically - you allude to positional variance but good luck in find that given each team uses each position slightly differently - how does team structure impact it, can I just call Tedesco a winger and then move him around the park - What happens when a winger develops into a fullback do you have to cut a player to give him experience there thus raising the bar for him to get the shot at development? - How are goal kickers judged? - What about the general play kicking roles? - Do minutes played matter? - Do the points get tallied every game so if I shift my winger to full back for an injury I forfeit? - What happens if 4 guys make their first origin team do I forfeit next week? - The rep football one turns players with tier two test nation eligibility into a millstone - It also assumes a guy who gets one game in the test team is the same as a three year regular. The base hypothesis here is that there is only one style of NRL team, with no variance amongst players other than experience - oh except if they jump into the rep sphere where they are again all equal. Now have you done any actual analysis to see on a game by game basis the correlation between home field adjusted margin and the difference in the minutes adjusted PPS? If the PPS is genuinely a highly reliable judge of quality there should be a high level of correlation.

First the operational aspect: This takes the burden of managing the financial burden of running a football club away from the football club, and given to the governing body, so the clubs can focus on junior development, which is the broader responsibility of the ARLC and the state leagues? That is like switching your middle forwards and spine players roles and expecting it to work out.

Actually your kicking half is the most important defender in your team

The other related query is where do coaches and their coaching staff come in. Bellamy and the Storm system would be worth more than most clubs, but there seems to be no limit on what they spend. Brisbane despite a woeful year are similar. Should coaches and their staff be included in a salary cap or points system in some way. If we are suggesting this for players to even the playing field, why exclude coaching systems?

I’m a big fan of systems like this and have been advocating this for years, acknowledging of course that no system is perfect. We do know however that that her current system is flawed and open to abuse. Third party deals add further murkiness. The SBW situation is marketing at its best, and whilst for the Roosters it’s great (especially given their run of injuries), it’s simply not fair to the other clubs. Other points: 1. Longevity at a club I agree with. With some discount applying. Nothing better than a one club player 2. There needs to be some reward for player development and a discount for such a player to their foundation club. This will make poaching more difficult as the new club will pay the players value without the development discount 3. Similar to the above, if a family comes from the same team (father and son), the example being Steve Morris (former St George halfback – brilliant player), the Dragons would have a family discount for both Brett and Josh if they played there 4. One issue is for clubs that develop lower profile players that become great based on their systems and coach. Ryan Papenhuyzen is mentioned earlier as a great example. Other clubs could then poach him 5. It’s often said that good players will play for a discount to be with a great team / coach that improves their chances of winning a premiership. Craig Bellamy and Trent Robinson are two good examples. There is nothing wrong with this and a player point system actually means this won’t happen, at least not too many players in one club. Thoughts on this Roarers? 6. Is there a potential restraint of trade issue for players here – they may argue they should be paid what the market will bear. See also point 5 7. Finally regards the panel of “experts” who determine player points values. We know at an operational level the NRL struggle in many areas. Who would sit on this panel, how would biases and preferences be avoided? Just a few thoughts – good article!

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The player rating would be on if they are good enough / likely to be selected for SOO. If they wish not to (like Jamie Lyon) then his club still carries those extra points as it helps them in the weekly competition.

How about all clubs just make themselves more desirable for players to want to stay at or come to? Pretty simple really. Once a club lands on it's nucleus of core players, then it's easy to have players want to stay or come across for unders...or developing players are able to adjust better ...... the cap works!! It's all about timing, patience, structure, coaching, smart recruitment and then luck! You get that core group of 4, 5 or 6 players which you can spend half your cap on, then the rest easily fit into the remaining cap if they want to be there knowing they have a chance for glory. These will be the fringe players or your development players who peak at the right time .... you need to keep this group evolving because you will lose a couple each year who do want more money or want a starting spot etc...but you need to replace them with the same value they were on.

How many points would the following players be on Adam Blair Nathan Cleary Josh Dugan Mitchell Pearce Tom Trbojevic the problem with placing arbitrary values is that they rarely make sense. A guy like DWZ can play for NZ, but wouldn't make it within a million miles of a SOO team, but he is penalised because he was born elsewhere. Jason Taumalolo can play a test against NZ and be worth a quarter of Peta Hiku. Ryan Papenhuyzen was unwanted at his junior club, but melbourne will get no reward for making him a first grader

Sam your a drongo. Its food for thought. He's already said there needs to be tweeks. Whats ridiculous is the current system.

Have gone through four drafts and still not satisfied. Hope to submit before season end... or go nuts.

I'm yet to see a system that can detect a paper bag of banknotes.

There has been a lot of talk about the salary cap since SBW signed with the Roosters. All because the comp is supposed to have the talent spread throughout, the Roosters have a strong first choice 17 so “shouldn’t” have the cap room and that SBW is “undervalued”. Based on your PPS, the Panthers would have had plenty of room to sign him. Yet they have set a club record for 9 wins in a row now and are sitting very dominantly at the top of the ladder. If SBW signed with the panthers under those conditions, wouldn’t we all be then complaining about the PPS and how a team going as well as Panthers could sign a player of his caliber when the system is supposed to be designed to spread the talent? Im not saying the cap system is perfect, but a PPS system would have its flaws as well, and clubs would work the system in different ways to achieve the same result.

I like the idea... in fact, I've written to numerous journalists and to the nrl for many many years proposing a points system (I'm not mathematical enough to have worked it out as much as this article has done) that rewards clubs for fostering juniors and loyalty and "punishes" clubs that go out and "buy" a Cooper Cronk for example (nothing against CC or The Roosters). It's just in my points system CC would have cost The Rooster a good third of their points cap and they would have had to try to fit the other 29 players with the remaining two thirds! I NEVER got one response to my proposal. Well done Daniel John. I hope it starts a conversation and a rethink by the NRL. In my opinion it would be a lot harder for clubs to rort a points cap system.

As much as i don't like this system. This should not be a problem. Clubs are contractually obliged to select their team on merit. there is no way they could sit a player just to save points and the rlpa would take issue if any team was thought to be doing this as they are limiting the players earning potential (which in itself is another issue with a points system)

one argument against uneven junior catchments is that clubs without a large catchment area could invest in country rugby league. Roosters as an example may not have 'local' juniors but they could have juniors from all over the state.