New salary cap rules

[Mike]

CUrrently he isn't on the quota for the reasons you said. But if the new rules were based on being qualified to play for the home federation (GB for us), then Hansen would have to be reclassified as an overseas player as he is no longer eligble for GB after playing for NZ. They stuck in the rule about being trained by a home federation club so he wouldn't be reclassified as overseas under the new rules (at least he is one player that will benefit from this rule).

[Mike]

DaveO posted:

Mike posted:
I think you're being a bit harsh here. Overall the rules seem quite sensible. Its pretty clear that players from our academy would count as home grown if they moved to another club whilst they are u21, but not after (unless they played 3 years at the other club in their academy).

So that would mean Fielden would not count as a home grown player at Wigan?

He wouldn't be a "homegrown" player, or an overseas player, he would be a "Federation trained" player. Next season we need 5 homegrown players (i.e. youngsters or players we trained), we can have upto 10 overseas players and the rest will be the other players who are over 21 spent 3 or more years in any federation club's academy (at least 10 of them) of whom Fielden will be one.

An interesting thing would be that if you signed a 21 year old, U21 qualified player from another club, for one year he would be a homegrown quota player but the season after he would not (as he was now older than 21 but hadn't spent three years in your academy setup). That'll have the administrators shuffling their resources!

One other thing: whats to stop clubs just naming 5 kids in their 25 and having numbers 25-30 taken up by the "real" first team players and never having to pay any attention to the homegrown rule? I imagine thats what Wakefield will do.

[DaveO]

Mike posted:
One other thing: whats to stop clubs just naming 5 kids in their 25 and having numbers 25-30 taken up by the "real" first team players and never having to pay any attention to the homegrown rule? I imagine thats what Wakefield will do.

I think there are many questions to be answered about how these rules will pan out in practical terms.

What you mention above is an obvious loophole but if the RFL turn a blind eye then nothing changes and that would be worse than now with all sorts of accusations flying about.

Related to this is how the RFL are going to enforce these rules. Apart from the loophole you mention the home-grown and federation qualifications of a player should be obvious but what about overseas players? How are the rfl going to enforce a strict quota of 5 when they can't at the moment enforce a quota of three?

It is also not clear if the when we get to 20% overseas players in a squad, if that means the quota has been increased to 5 or whether its still three and two extra can be from overseas (i.e. Kolpaks) or whether we could sign 5 genuine Aussies.

Wouldn't surprise me to see this rule subject to lots of clarifications and amendments.

Dave

[GeoffN]

DaveO posted:

Also, what if you have a 30 man squad? Do the 5 extra players have to be british trained?

This is also not clear as they go on about a 25 man squad. I half expect another email saying clubs can't have more than a 25 man first team squad!

Dave

That is already the case, Dave (and Mike).

B1:9 No later than 1 February prior to the commencement of the season each Club shall notify the Board in writing of the squad (“First Team
Squad”) numbers of those 25 players who will then become the Clubs First Team Squad
and only members of that First Team Squad shall be entitled to play for that Club’s first
team in League and/or Cup matches.

http://www.therfl.co.uk/clientdocs/Oper ... les_07.pdf

It does go on to detail how extra players can be brought in, if necessary, through injuries, say.

[GeoffN]

DaveO posted:

Wouldn't surprise me to see this rule subject to lots of clarifications and amendments.

Dave

I think that's fair enough, really - any initiative like this will need to be "fine-tuned" as it develops.

I'm delighted that finally the RFL and the SL chairmen have started to do someting about it; we've been calling for something similar for years (ever since the Kolpak case, really), so it's a bit unfair to start nitpicking.

A very big step in the right direction, IMO.

One thing I haven't seen is the voting details. I wonder if it was unanimous.

[DaveO]

Morph posted:
So then, what would be the scenario if we re-signed Shaun Briscoe? A player we developed through our academy but then left, would he be a "homegrown" or federation player as he has played at a club other than the one that developed him?

If he is classed as a howngrown player, it may see a scramble for clubs to re sign their discarded academy players, i forsee the return of Kev Brown, Apinall and Wild

Why? Provided you have enough home grown players you are not restricted on how many federated players you have. Wigan meet that criteria already so don't need to go searching for any former players to make up the home grown numbers.

So if a player is from say, Leeds and played all amateur in leeds, and if Bradford signed him he would be a homegrown player for bradford as he would go through their academy .

Yes. Under the new rules Luke Robinson would have been a home grown player for us despite being a Halifax lad because he went through our academy but now he is at Salford he is a federation player for them.

Similarly Danny Tickle was a federation player for us because even though he is a Wigan lad he went through the Halifax academy (I think) before we signed him.

Dave

[DaveO]

GeoffN posted:

DaveO posted:

Wouldn't surprise me to see this rule subject to lots of clarifications and amendments.

Dave

I think that's fair enough, really - any initiative like this will need to be "fine-tuned" as it develops.

I'm delighted that finally the RFL and the SL chairmen have started to do someting about it; we've been calling for something similar for years (ever since the Kolpak case, really), so it's a bit unfair to start nitpicking.

I think its essential to nit pick given the RFL's record of not thinking the implications of things through!

A very big step in the right direction, IMO.

One thing I haven't seen is the voting details. I wonder if it was unanimous.

I'd be very surprised to see Wigan voting against these ideas. Well except the Millenium Magic thing that was also debated and agreed on at the same meeting!

Dave

[GeoffN]

DaveO posted:

I think its essential to nit pick given the RFL's record of not thinking the implications of things through!

Good point!

I'd be very surprised to see Wigan voting against these ideas. Well except the Millenium Magic thing that was also debated and agreed on at the same meeting!

Dave

I was rather thinking of clubs like Harlequins, Wakefield, Salford, Huddersfield, with less than productive youth systems.

Incidentally, no mention of any quota exemption for 'Quins - where are they up to with their quota allowance now? I know it was gradually (one per year) being reduced to eventually come into line with the rest of SL, but can't remember how far they'd got.

[DaveO]

GeoffN posted:

Incidentally, no mention of any quota exemption for 'Quins - where are they up to with their quota allowance now? I know it was gradually (one per year) being reduced to eventually come into line with the rest of SL, but can't remember how far they'd got.

Not mentioned and neither anything about Les Cats (can't remember if they have a quota exemption or not).

But if 20% if the 25 can be foreign and that means any foreign player I would have thought Qunins would meet that already so the issue goes away.

Dave

[GeoffN]

DaveO posted:

GeoffN posted:

Incidentally, no mention of any quota exemption for 'Quins - where are they up to with their quota allowance now? I know it was gradually (one per year) being reduced to eventually come into line with the rest of SL, but can't remember how far they'd got.

Not mentioned and neither anything about Les Cats (can't remember if they have a quota exemption or not).

But if 20% if the 25 can be foreign and that means any foreign player I would have thought Qunins would meet that already so the issue goes away.

Dave

I think I'm right in saying they have 11 or 12 foreigners at present, but not sure how many are quota and how many Kolpak.