@yeahcaz said in [Signing Suggestions & Rumours](/post/1394501) said:
Why would anyone want to sign here ? Genuine question.
To play first grade and win the comp. It can be turned around pretty easily with quality players. If I was a quality player it'd be really easy for me to sign up to the Tigers. If my son was a quality player I'd push him to sign with the Tigers.
Really? What would draw you to us?
Pretty simple - playing first grade and winning the comp. What is wrong with that ? Honestly I don't see any valid counter argument.
But if other clubs want you aswell? I can see players come here if it's their only choice but that's no choice at all.
agree, its not just an issue for our club but competition wide.
Why are the Storm, Roosters consistently at the top? They get the choice of the elite young talent because those young players know they are walking straight into a strong team. They then also then get their pick of the talent who have been around a while but never won anything as they want to go to a strong team for a shot at a title. Finally, they can generally keep their top players because they have been successful at that club they feel a sense of belonging there.
The lower teams however need to pay massive overs to attract talent. But they are then instantly disadvantaged as their salary cap is now disproportional and can not sign enough elite talent to field a strong team. So they continue to underperform and remain a lower team.
Been saying it for years, the salary cap disadvantages the lower teams because they have to pay overs so the get less bang for their cap
got any solutions?
I have but I have been down this track a million times on this forum and others…basically every club is given 1000 points and every player no matter what you pay them is graded by some means..ie Australian rep,SOO rep, 200 gamer,first year rookie. So all your 30 players are given a grade by the NRL and have to fit within the 1000 points. That ensures you have a level playing field, because at present the playing field is not flat. It would stop teams getting advantages out of TPAs. Anyway not worth debating, because it will not happen. The NRL is controlled by people with self interests
100% correct. I'd expand on that by making it a dollar value and the market would set the rate, so if one club offers x, another can't offer y and use the old "they want to come here to win a comp so they took less".
I'd also make the initial rookie contract at a club the value of that player until that player decides to go elsewhere, so, for example, Alex Seyfarth would always be valued on the WT cap as say $250k, no matter what WT are actually paying him, but if he chose to leave he would be valued at his new club at market rate. That would encourage clubs to either develop their juniors or scout them very early, rather than just buy the guts out of poorer clubs.
I know this means a club with plenty of good juniors would be actually paying way over the agreed value of their roster, or the salary cap, but the better roster should also attract better sponsorship and TPA's.
I can't agree with that either, players deserve a say in where they play and if they want to take less to play for a team I wouldn't want to prevent that.
I do believe there should be salary cap concessions for long term and developed players larger than there is now but keeping them at their rookie levels goes too far the other way.
Yep, sorry, I'll clarify:
Players can choose to take less but they should be allocated a true market value as their cost to the clubs cap, otherwise the Roosters still end up with everyone.
I know the rookie contract bit is a bit of a reach, but you get my drift on rewarding junior development and discouraging raiding. Maybe a maximum value of 500k?
If Teddy was going to be a salary cap cost of, say $800k to the Roosters, along with Luke Keary at $800k, JWH at $500, Cooper Cronk $1m, Angus Chricton $800, there's 40% of their cap gone on 5 players. They've got to start pulling their heads in rather than chasing someone else's gun edge to replace Boyd Cordner.
Why can't it be looked at like this
Use a rating system for the top players in each position across all clubs
Eg the 16 starting fullbacks get rated by there peers and get a ranking from 1 to 16
Tedesco gets a 1 Trbojevic a 2 Papenhuyzen a 3 and so on
In the end when you add up all the scores your players receive your team is given a score
If you had the best 13 players in each position you would have a score of 16
If you have the worst players in each position you would have a score of 208
If every team had an even distribution of quality players the average score per team would be around 104 points
That is what the league should be trying to achieve
It takes the $ out of the equation so it doesn't matter if a team tries to cheat the cap
It won't work
The points a player receives is purely based on their peers and maybe some statistical or expert opinions
You would find it hard to argue against that system although some teams may not like it
If you exceed your points then you should be made to release a player or two to get it back in line with and acceptable average plus or minus 5%
Now in saying all of that, if a team was in excess of the average points score, they should not be allowed to sign a player that increases their average score
So someone like Brandon Smith would not be allowed to go to someone like the Roosters unless they were in the points position to do so
This system would eventually even the playing field
It should also not deprive a player from his earnings
Also players who play all their junior football at the one club and get developed by that club could receive some kind of points relief while at the same club
You could also have another points system for the next best 13 players at each club to stop the stock piling
This would force the talent to spread across all clubs
So when would these evaluations of players occur?
It would occur at the end of each season
The club would then have 12 months to shed enough players / Points
People will always come up with excuses as to why it shouldn't happen but that's just what they are, excuses
If teams can manage their cap
Then they can manage a points system like this
So they may have to drop players mid contract that they turned into better players?
Those things would have to be worked out
But every year a number of players come off contract
Say you have 7 players coming off contract and their points tally was 50
You may need to fill those 7 positions with say 70 points otherwise you won't fit within the allocated points system
The better the player the lower the point they carry
It's really not to different from players being forced out of a club because of cap constraints due to a club being successful
These things happen
So look at Penrith for example
They have had to release Hetherington, Tetevano, Tamou, Laurie, Mansour, Dean Whare all last year because of cap constraints
Adding a points system to your players would even up the competition
If it doesn't happen we may as well give up because the competition will never be even
We will continue to have lop sided scores
No of us want that
How many people are turning off early or walking out of games early
Something is wrong with the way this is all working out at the moment
Horse racing has weight handicaps is that fair ?
Golf can have handicaps
Drag racing has time handicaps
All these things don't seem fair, but they work to even up the competition
Its completely different as their valuation could completely change mid contract.
Just because one players value increases doesn't mean they all do
Some players values will fall creating space
If a players value increases it doesn't mean you off load him
What it means is the players who are off contract may need to be replaced with a player of lesser value
I guess I am talking of situations like when Roosters signed Cronk and Teddy
They already had a very strong team full of origin and Australian and international players
All of a sudden they sign two more of the best players available
That needs to stop or this game and many clubs will be ruined
How many of us will continue to follow the Tigers in 10 to 15 years if we continue to get flogged and miss the 8
Many of us will walk away from following the game
Yeah and what if the ones that increase are the ones you have on contract and the ones that decrease are the ones coming off contract, it would decimate a team and they may not be able to sign players to replace the off contract players. I think it would be a terrible system and would much prefer what we have now with centralised contracts and payments.
And that won't work when players want to go to strong clubs and take understand to do so
It's easy to come up with reasons why the system shouldn't change or to find holes in someone's Suggestions
All I know is the current system is not working and there needs to be a fix
Or we might as well have two conferences and be done with it
If you don't point out holes in someone's suggestions then you end up in a worst place than we are now. I do not think a points based system is better than what we currently have.
At the moment the cap isn't working because of players willing to take unders to go to a stronger club
They may also get other un reported benefits
By introducing a system that evens the playing field on the ability of players at each club, you will end up with a much more even competition and much closer games then those we currently have
It also takes out getting paid unders and un reported benefits out of the equation
An even competition will keep all supporters interested in watching the full game and not turn off at half time because that is what is happening now
Centralised payments through the Nrl won't achieve an even playing field when players are willing to take unders
The whole idea of the cap was to even the competition and make it a closer competition That has clearly not worked and never will
