Stu M wrote:
Or Wigan would've had to compete in a salary cap era where they weren't allowed to blow other teams out of the water with transfer fees and wages.
Saints have now faced 4 different teams in the last four finals so shows just how consistent we are to keep getting there and winning. Of course this will be disregarded and if we win tomorrow there will be some excuse given and we aren't that great etc etc. We've had playing Salford in 2019 as not a great team and then 2 Covid years accounting for 2020 and 2021 so wondering what your excuses will be if we win tomorrow?
I was in favour of the salary cap for the first 5-6 years as it did balance out the table and help stop teams from bankrupting themselves , but I have to say I was wrong and it's been a disaster , I was a Leigh fan who grew up and was in wigan schools during the reign , it was a hard time , I was only too happy to see them pegged back , but now i've grown up a lot and lost a lot of interest in RL , I can look back at the 1988-1995 wigan sides and see how good they where , they dragged the standard of UK RL up and other teams had to get to that level , although Wigan did this to other teams detriment and reduced there quality by buying stars and sticking them on the A team ( like Nigel Wright , Tony Smith and Henry Paul early on )
We now have no superstars , no well known names outside of the game , the standard of rugby is nowhere near what it was in the early 90's . Its no longer a sport that will attract many new spectators outside of the grass roots regions , we have young players quitting to follow careers like the police and other sports . Good well run teams have a spending cap so they can invest or take a gamble . The cap needs to go if the sport is ever going to grow and we are still light years behind the NRL.