Good idea by Sticky in regards to salary cap

[Hanscholo]

Ricky...love, pet darling. Sacking a player does nothing, you are entitled to pay them out, in particular in mannah's case you were certainly obliged therefore you would also cop the salary cap for him.

I believe clubs that are in a solid financial position should be able to get special dispensation for long term injuries and health problems like the mannah case. It should be the bonus for a well run club to do so.

However, the cap isnt just there as a talent equalisation mechanism, its there to protect the 90% of clubs in our league which are financial basket cases, of which your club is a shinning example. If indeed you could have last season replaced those three players you mentioned, for a total of about 600k p/a its likely the sharks would have been insolvent at year end. You guys were refinancing, you had banks calling you on your line of credit. Please, are we now to believe that somehow the sharks would have been in a position to not only pay those guys, but additional resources for similar money? Its the same reason the Knights have done jack sh*t to sign a decent half back even though the are well short of their cap...they cant afford it.

I would stick to the coaching mate, it needs the attention.

 

[Hanscholo]

This is a case of the restraint of trade by the NRL having a direct effect on the bottom line of a club and their abilty to survive.
Losing 1 or 2 key players for a season could spell doom to a club who are lucky to carry 17 genuine first grade quality players before an injury let alone after the season commences.

Loss after loss and dwindling crowd support because of this will impact the clubs abilty to trade and remain viable and devalue the cost of sponsorship etc.

Something needs to be done.

Funny thing is.

The clubs with the cash to do it wont, because the are tied up with News Ltd. The other clubs are either way too poor to want the cap changed or too poor to pay for the court challenge. The salary cap is a restraint of trade, we have known this for years, just like the draft is in the AFL but nobody has challenged it yet, because they either lack the will, or the money to do so.

Nothing will change when News Ltd leaves either. The cap as much as i hate it, and as much as i think it stagnates clubs and is an incentive to spend less on jnrs will stay because our clubs dont make enough from our sh*t TV deal, and even if they did, they are still run by hacks that plan the same 18m dollar budger every year and try and get the same amount of sponsorship and income every year. its a false economy, we either face up to the fact that clubs will fall by the way side and embrace a free market or we keep the mickey mouse stagnant model. Personally, in this day and age, if a side cant survive on its own two feet in a competative market, the league can do without it anyway.

 

[The Engineers Room]

The NFL idea is OK but I can see a flaw. A player is out of form, and the club can't offload him so they put him on the injured reserve list and free up the cap to pick up someone else.

A think a points system rather than a salary cap is the answer. The player must have an independant medical examination and then their points are waived for the season and the club can continue to pay their salary.