Is it time to modify the salary cap?

[dr nick]

There was all this talk about introducing a long service or marquee player clause when Andrew Johns was talking about going to Union (so you could spend an extra 20% on him not counted towards the salary cap), but nothing was ever done about it. A similar situation looms with Inglis eyeing off union and Slater being approached by Japanese Rugby. There's even talk of the AFL targeting more players

Now I don't know how much of this hype is driven by media managers, but the Melbourne Rebels will be on the hunt for the NRL discards and this will only drive up demand and hence player salaries.

Surely a club should have more incentive to keep a loyal player than to import another player of similar talent and for similar dollars. At the moment no such incentive exists under the salary cap. It's better than just wildly increasing the cap to $5m IMO.

 

[Bomber Bears]

I think there is.

I suspect most clubs could afford a slightly higher cap, barring probably Cronulla/ Newcastle are currently below the cap but I think this is due to having two players fired after most player deals had been completed. NZ may also be below the cap (or included their 20's or Vulcans in the 4.1 mil).

A Marquee system wouldnt be too bad, although it would obviously favour a club like Brisbane, who could probably have a few players on a million such are their cash reserves. Depends if it was just one or 2-3 marquee players.

 

[dr nick]

Probably just one marquee player I reckon. If they think there are more than 16 marquee players across the comp then they'll just need to find a way to fit them under the salary cap.