The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Mon Feb 17, 2025 2:42 pm  

Well worth a watch. https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/ ... -radlinski

Well worth a watch. https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/ ... -radlinski

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Mon Feb 17, 2025 7:41 pm  

We’re so lucky to have him.

Great watch

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Mon Feb 17, 2025 8:19 pm  

Really positive stuff throughout but it's especially pleasing to hear the lines about Nsemba having no release clauses and how Danson is determined to stop any drain of talent out of the club. We knew about the Nsemba deal not having releases but to then hear them basically saying Danson wouldn't be interested in a transfer fee gives you plenty of hope. It sounds like we're going to be in a fortunate position going forward.

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Tue Feb 18, 2025 1:21 am  

Great listen very lucky to have him,he is clearly very frustrated with other clubs in the super league isn't he

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:08 am  

MAC25 wrote:

Great listen very lucky to have him, he is clearly very frustrated with other clubs in the super league isn't he

He has every right to be, but it's fairly easy to do that looking down from your palace. We've been incredibly lucky to have Lenegan and Danson investing copious amounts of their own money into the club and its facilities.

Rads is absolutely right that the salary cap should increase inline with inflation though, it's scandalous that it hasn't. In 2003 (possible SL's 'peak'?) the cap was £1.8m. With inflation this year's should be £3.2m however it's actually £2.1m - not even close.

The latest TV deal has killed a lot of growth for RL in this country IMO as most clubs just don't have the free cash to spend on things like a Las Vegas trip or a £350k a year player. We need to open the sport up to outside investment by relaxing the salary cap, creating a player market and putting some people with actual ambition in The RFL. The marquee player rule is great but we cannot do nothing else, other than light-up posts, fireworks and live bands and expect the sport to grow.

Dare I say it that the sport also needs a couple of rule changes as well to make it more exciting. We aren't going to win new fans with a 1-0 game where both teams defended well and played 5 drives and a kick rugby. I actually like RU's bonus point method which encourages actually scoring tries but maybe there's something else that's better.

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:33 am  

Wigg'n wrote:

He has every right to be, but it's fairly easy to do that looking down from your palace. We've been incredibly lucky to have Lenegan and Danson investing copious amounts of their own money into the club and its facilities.

Spot on. Clearly his first consideration is Wigan but I do wonder if he would have the same opinion without Danson's wealth behind the club and when Wigan were posting significant losses.

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:44 am  

There was a lot of talk for the first couple of years after the salary cap was brought in about the benefits and drawbacks of it and people basically choose their side of the argument based on the team they supported but I don't think there is any doubt now that it hasn't worked. Sadly most teams are backed that far in to a corner financially that they cannot choose to change it or remove it now.

There was never any issue with having a salary cap but to not have some sort of yearly uplift built in has totally stunted the growth of the competition. It has always been used as a tool of levelling down and that can never be seen as a positive. Each and every club should be striving to catch up with the best teams but we've built a culture of trying to drag the best teams down to other clubs levels.

The clubs wanting to keep the salary cap down over the past couple of decades would've argued at the start that it would lead to varied winners of the trophies on offer and that it would safeguard clubs financially. It has done neither!!

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:49 am  

Stu M wrote:

Spot on. Clearly his first consideration is Wigan but I do wonder if he would have the same opinion without Danson's wealth behind the club and when Wigan were posting significant losses.

In fairness to Radlinski I think he hit the right tone of acknowledging that we need a cap in place while also highlighting the absolute lunacy of any suggestion that it is lowered. Any club wanting to lower the salary cap doesn't need to bring other clubs down to the level they think is affordable for them, they just need to spend what they can afford themselves.

I'm sure other people in Radlinski's (privileged) position, where he has a billionaire owner would just say 'lets get rid of the cap altogether' but he knows that isn't right for the game as a whole, even if it would make his job much easier.

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:50 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

The clubs wanting to keep the salary cap down over the past couple of decades would've argued at the start that it would lead to varied winners of the trophies on offer and that it would safeguard clubs financially. It has done neither!!

Do you not think that this is more to do with the quality of the youth systems at the clubs that win trophies and the sheer number of home-grown players?

Re: The Bench - Kris Radlinski : Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:09 pm  

Stu M wrote:

Do you not think that this is more to do with the quality of the youth systems at the clubs that win trophies and the sheer number of home-grown players?

Clearly the clubs wanting a salary cap initially and then always pushing to keep it down did not see that one coming. You only need to look at the list of Grand Final winners to see the secret to success when there is a salary cap but many clubs haven't ever taken the hint.

If those clubs don't invest in youth, don't have success, even with a stagnant salary cap and still see clubs getting in to financial difficulty you'd like to think they have realised it hasn't worked but then their solution to help the whole sport is to just lower it further, rather than taking accountability for their own spend. Lowering the salary cap will just push us closer to going back to being a semi pro sport. In truth, I think a couple of the clubs would be happy enough with that.