@hsvjones said in [Signing Suggestions & Rumours](/post/1073295) said:
@cochise So you are happy for clubs like Roosters , Souths Broncos etc.. to have like 12 rep players in there team each week and clubs like us are lucky to have 2. There salary on the NRL books is like half of what they are actually getting as they are paid in TPA, Memberships at clubs, Partners on high paying jobs doing nothing, Rent paid for etc...
I don't care what they pay them and 100% they have the right to earn what they can but if they had a points system or something like that it would make an even playing field.
How hard is it for us to bring a top player here ? We have to pay through the roof as that player is getting paid a great package at E.g. Roosters through Salary, TPA, side benefits etc.. Why would they leave unless it was massive money.. However if it was an even playing field that big club cannot have all these top players on the books even if they could pay the on the side and that spreads the talent around..
Rant over but deep down alot of people would agree..
(Disclaimer before i get any reply's - I also understand our club needs to be run better but so does the NRL)
Instead of a point system, my suggestion for years has been that if a club brings their juniors through to the top grade, those players should be salary cap exempt and the club can pay whatever they feel is necessary to keep them as a reward for developing that player as a junior. In turn, I would lower the salary cap to stop teams like the roosters from poaching players from other clubs.
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That grub at the Roosters who use to play for us is a prime example as to why this would work. If we were allowed to pay him what we liked with no salary cap restrictions, then we'd have a much better chance of keeping those juniors we develop. This would force teams like the Roosters to change their philosophy of poaching players with under the table deals and develop their own juniors.
With a lowered salary cap, the Roosters on paper would have to show that they are paying the grub $500k with TPA deals. If we're offering over a million dollars and the grub wants to say he's prepared to take less money to play in a winning team like he does now, questions will be asked of him how he can leave $500k on the table??
This system also puts focus back onto every club's juniors and makes their junior footy a priority now. That's a win/win for the game.
Again it's a nice idea but it probably wouldn't work how you hope. First up, how do you define 'junior'. The easiest way is probably to say if you make your first-grade debut for a club you count as a junior. All that would happen then is the Roosters putting more resources into poaching other clubs' best players at 18.
If you say junior means you have to have been in a club's system since, say, 16 you're unfairly penalising anyone who isn't a clear star at a very young age. Lots of fantastic players emerged as real talents later and move between clubs before developing. These players would be much less valuable as they don't qualify for cap exemption. What if a kid's parents moved from Auckland to Sydney, or Canberra to Townsville, when he was 16 and he changed clubs as a result?
Basically, if you set the qualifying line too old it promotes poaching and if you set it too young it penalises players unfairly.
Maybe there's some sort of sliding scale that could be used, where clubs get cap discounts for players based on the number of years they've been with the club starting at 16 or 17. It couldn't be a huge offset but it would be a small incentive to retention rather than moving and would also apply to someone like a Twal who isn't a Tigers junior but could play his whole first grade career at the Tigers.
