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.
The big problem is the best players staying at the best clubs for unders. It circumvents what the cap is supposed to achieve.
You're right there Wendog, things will become even harder for teams currently down the bottom, when the nrlol bring in an 18th team and stretch the player market even thinner. It will be impossible to get good talent
Are they staying for unders? Or do they get special deals that are not covered by the cap, such as third party sponsorships, or a big "win' in a golf "competition".
If a club attracts good players to take under's, they deserve the benefit of that IMO. We just need to become that club again.
Players who take unders to stay at or go to a club, should have themselves and partners audited by the ATO
Hard to do when the players won’t come.
That’s the point. We all know they’re not really on unders, but this way they can’t be signed if the club can’t pay him 90% of the max offer.
That's whats happened recently so probably its the likely thing to happen next time there's a new team introduced. Down the track it may expand the depth of talent tho.
That's fair to keep it above board.
Yes but then you have the TPA's subverting the "payments" under the SC?
Yep. Hard to see Penrith not being strong for years to come. They have the biggest junior base, a production line of young talent, sign the good ones early and have them integrating into successful teams as they come through grade. Then they want to stay together and will take unders for longer
At least with the latest team they introduced to NRL they went to an area that's got a strong League background and a long history of juniors.
Things are a lot tougher these days with sponsorship and RL market share in finding a stand alone franchise ready to hit the ground running.
I didn’t mind the 14 team comp. Was easier to win the comp and talent wasn’t as stretched.
The intention is good but that system would be open to abuse. Other clubs could make inflated offers with the sole intention of driving prices up for a current player's club, with no real intention of proceeding with a contract with them.
But isn’t that the gamble? You throw out a silly offer of $1.3M to drive up a players price, but what if the player takes it? then you need to live with that signing. I agree clubs will play the game, but it’s always a gamble and could come back to bite clubs. I also agree though for better recognition of jnrs by the way if cap relief.
If you incentivise junior development then we can look forward to Penrith v Brisbane every year for twenty years and us bottom 4
That's the way it's going currently. Might as well give everyone some ability to be competitive in retaining their own juniors.