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- Aug 6, 2016
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A salary cap working alongside a third party agreement set up is open to too much manipulation by influential clubs and owners and can't possibly be effective in evening out the competition.They needed to increase the talent pool before expansion. There's already a more than visible gap in talent levels between the top 4-6 and the rest of the competition. You can pretty much rule out a third of the teams as realistic hopes of being premiership contenders before game 1. Expanding too quickly will only expand the gap between top and bottom teams. At minimum expansion needs to be accompanied by a potential allowance to recruit a marquee super league player with a big chunk of their wage outside of the cap if you've finished below a certain position on the ladder. We lose a good number of players to the super league comp. I think they still have an international player allowance.
Long term, paying another 30 players to join the NRL ranks will mean 30 lower quality players will drift into the NRL. They have to implement measures to ensure that the top third of teams aren't regularly demolishing the other 2/3 of the competition. It doesn't generate interest in the 2/3 of fans seeing their team and knowing they have no hope of competing for the premiership.
It's likely to remain the same Top 4-6 (or so) as per usual for a fair while....but we live in hope our club can succeed in the current status quo.