In the NRL each club has to spend 95% of the salary cap, which is 3/4x’s bigger than ours.... obviously the NRL is the pinnacle of the sport, though obviously this does create issues as seen in recent years over there. There are still massive blow out scores, more than over here, example Melbourne vs Warriors this morning, there is still a massive gap between top teams and lower teams, like over here. Clubs are forced to sign players for more than what they are worth and then stuck with them Ie, Luke Brooks at the Tigers $1.2 million a year he’s on, tigers haven’t played finals rugby for god knows how long. Attracting decent players from the championship is also difficult, as discussed on a different thread, a lot have very good jobs, alongside their part time rugby wages, who would want to give that up. I look at Canterbury Bulldogs who have signed a load of high profile players Ie Addo -Carr, Burton, Pangai Jr, yet they are garbage, so throwing money at the problem isn’t going to clearly work. The pinnacle clubs like the Storm and Panthers (who have the biggest junior pool in Aus) have raised juniors to come through and any decent signings they make compliment the juniors coming through. Obviously this isn’t done over night, but we look like we have a good batch coming through for the first time in a while. St’s and Wigan are brimming with youth that have come through, Leeds let a great team grow too old without bringing more quality through, and now have tried to throw money at it ie Austin, Sezer etc and it clearly isn’t working.
