Aviva Salary Cap

Poll of Telegraph readers suggest below


Should English rugby's salary cap be raised to French levels?


Yes, it's the only way to compete in Europe 43.99%


No, it will create a rich-poor divide and debt 56.01%


Well what do you guys think? Do the big clubs get to grow bigger and the Premiership more one sided? Or do they get a level playing field and try to raise the standard?

Or the other option do they invest more of their money in their home grown talent at their academies?

I do not agree with raising the cap unless it is linked to affordability. And the French cap (£7.2m?) is out of reach for any English club (without relying on benefactors).

It will be hard for the top clubs in England to maintain the quality of squad needed to:

a) Qualify for Europe

AND

b) Compete in Europe

Last year Saints were a prime example of this. Their First XV was capabale of competing and beating the best in Europe - however below that the quality was not so great. They tried to win the AP and the HC and in the end ran out of steam.

People say Mallinder should have rested players more - but to do that would mean losing more matches and possibly not even qualifying for Europe this year. Having better back-ups would mean weakening the first XV - a Catch 22 situation.

As to investing in home grown talent - we keep losing players who came through the academy as they get offered more money elsewhere. We more than doubled Ben Youngs salary last year as he was now an international in demand from other clubs (he was offered £50k a year more by a near neighbour). To afford this we were unable to keep Dan Hipkiss.

This year we could keep either George Ford or Billy 36. 36 has gone to Glaws and Bowden is joining us on a lower salary than 36 will be getting. Do I like the situation - no. i would rather keep the local lad, but we could not keep ford and 36 and stay in the cap.

ps this latter situation is one in which the Scarlets will be at risk of finding themselves. Producing players they cannot afford to keep. So long as the academy keeps producing players it is fine - but if you end up with a mismatch, ie losing all your props or FHs and coming through are wingers and "nd Rows then you have a problem.

LondonTiger wrote:ps this latter situation is one in which the Scarlets will be at risk of finding themselves. Producing players they cannot afford to keep. So long as the academy keeps producing players it is fine - but if you end up with a mismatch, ie losing all your props or FHs and coming through are wingers and "nd Rows then you have a problem.

But what an earth can we do?

In Wales no one has the money to compete with France. We are in the same boat as the Kiwis. There is no other answer than to keep doing our thing and hope that the IRB make a deal to secure compensation for nations in Wales circumstance.

Well, I have a fundamental disagreement with the whole compensation thing if players move at the end of their contract unless it is applied to every other occupation.

Are EPS players included in the salary cap? That would make more sense to me than raising the cap itself. It would encourage teams to develop homegrown talent and nurture them throughout their career rather than flog 'em off at the first opportunity and bring in a cheap journeyman.

LondonTiger wrote:Well, I have a fundamental disagreement with the whole compensation thing if players move at the end of their contract unless it is applied to every other occupation.

+1.

In the end of the day these players are doing their jobs, and have the same rights to seek out new employment as the rest of us.

Carpe Diem wrote:Are EPS players included in the salary cap? That would make more sense to me than raising the cap itself. It would encourage teams to develop homegrown talent and nurture them throughout their career rather than flog 'em off at the first opportunity and bring in a cheap journeyman.

Or to try an poach other sides EPS players

The AP teams all get the same money for player release irrespective of how many players they provide - and they cannot be discounted against the cap.

It would make sense to reduce the Cap and not include EPS players in it - but some recognition would need to be made for clubs who actually produce the players to prevent mass poaching.

It all gets complicated then.

At the minute the salary cap is smoothing the strength of the AP teams rather well. It is difficult for any of the big teams to develop an outright advantage due to the combination of financial ristrictions and international call ups. This means we have a competitive AP league where clubs with a good structure and team ethos can go from relegation favourites to playoff contenders in a short space of time (take a bow Chiefs). However, the price for this competition is the English teams falling behind in Europe.

The French teams have almost two AP quality first teams on the books all of the time, the Irish teams are able to hold onto all their big names thanks to the IRFU Central Contract top up schemes and the likes of Edinburgh can happily target the HEC as their is no fear of relegation or no HEC qualification. We need to add something to make the English teams competitive again.

We saw how losing a few key players lead to Tigers taking a spanking at Ravenhill and how Quinns were nullified in Connacht. The HEC teams need the ability to add one or two more first team players to the squads to improve depth.

Sam - edinburgh have not really targetted the HEC as such its pretty much the same team in both leagues, just they seem to have managed to get the 50-50 calls, bounces, catch the balls they would have dropped etc, in the HEC and not in the Rabo.

I honestly don't think that the Salary cap in the Avivia should be stopping you from being competitive in Europe.

Hmm, maybe not as simple as i thought then. I know they get a £30,000 discount per player away during a RWC year so some allowance is made for internationals. You are right though more recognition should be given to the clubs who actually produce the talent in the first place.

Ok, how about this: If a player is selected for the EPS and has come through his club's academy then his salary does not count towards the cap. If he was then poached by a larger club his salary would have to be set against the cap? Would this discourage player drain?

Scarlet, i think this whole salary cap/euro failure thing is a bit of a red herring. It's just a good excuse for the bigger clubs to start banging on about the cap. I do think, however, that the cap needs to be looked at to encourage English talent to be nurtured rather than cheaper imports.

I honestly don't think that the Salary cap in the Avivia should be stopping you from being competitive in Europe.

It's a combination of the cap and the league structure. English clubs need to guarentee a decent finish in the AP more than they need to target the HEC. If they finish 7th in the league but lose in the final of the HEC then that's no lucrative HEC rugby for the following season which is a hit to the budget (these AP clubs are businesses) which many would be loathe to accept. The budget has been static for quite a long time now whilst players wages have seen significant inflation. Even the AP fatcats Tigers have been losing long term academy graduates because they simply can't afford to keep them under the cap, the likes of Moody, Vesty and Hipkiss have been released in previous seasons and now Twelvetrees is off because we can't offer a competitive wage. Twelvetrees and Moody were replaced by foreign imports (Bowden and Salvi) so that's not really much help to English rugby is it.

The clubs are working with smaller and increasingly younger squads in order to meet the cap. The cap needs to change if there is to be realistic compeition with Irish provinces and French clubs. Not much change I hasten to add but the marquee player rule and the increases in the cap both general and youth linked are positive changes in my view.

How strong a team will Edinburgh put out on Sunday though?
They can afford to rest the entire first team if they wish.

The reason that English clubs "failed" in Europe this year is because they were not good enough. Raising the cap would mnake little difference to that.

However that does not mean that AP sides do not have issues that are not necessarily present elsewhere. We have to place full priority on the league to avoid relegation and to secure an HC place. We then choose to try and proritise the HC as well. The situation for the Rabo12 teams is different. This is not excusing English performance, but they are different. Even so it has only been Irish sides that have been capable of challenging for the Rabo title and the HC. France has a similar situation to England, but there you have actually seen clubs put out second teams in the HC as they prioritise the league. Historically the teams that tried to compete in both had two ful strength lineups and spent double the English cap. this is now being reduced.

The Cap in england means that we are not on a level playing field with France. The structure of the Rabo12 means we are on a different playing field to those sides.

The cap will not increase significantly so we shoudl stop moaning about it, get on with developing younger players and accept that the years of English clubs dominating Europe are, for now, over.

LondonTiger wrote: The reason that English clubs "failed" in Europe this year is because they were not good enough.

I know this is off topic, but to pick up on this Tiger, i only partially agree with this statement. There is certainly a question of 'skills', but also commitment. Quins rinsing (although it was painful for me to watch ) was a blatent crash out due to commitments being elsewhere (i reckon AP).

Back on topic. I firmly believe a salary cap up to where France is at the moment would negativly impact on the National side (look at the hit & miss nature of France over the last year), and on the run up towards a home RWC '15 that can not be a good thing! We need cast iron academy systems in place that move players into world class premiership clubs to pratice their trade at the highest level. As such the salary cap should be a tight rope; enough to attract world class players at club level for the guys coming out of academies to cut their teeth with, but not so much it stifles home grown developed talent by having sides full of international talent and no room for 'local lads'.

AliW - the Toulon game is less relevent to the two matches against connacht. Quins struggled with Connacht's physicality in both matches and were perhaps a tad lucky to win the home game.

Yes they beat Toulouse - the week after being stuffed by Toulouse. Gloucester and Edinburgh have also beaten toulouse this season.

Tigers were mauled in Belfast and Montferrand.
Sarries won their group but mauled by Clermont in 1/4 final.
Saints, Bath, and LI all struggled.
Quins and Glaws were not good enough to get out of their group.

This is true LT and a lot of those clubs are relying heavilly on young players who will be wanting new longer term and much improved contracts meaning the AP sides will have to spend more to remain static. That's unless they either shed the costly players or let squad depth take a hit. Neither of those things will help us regain competitiveness in Europe. In fact the salary cap increases may help the clubs stay static which given the number of young players coming through should see some development as well as the marquee signings adding some class in key areas. The effects of the changes to the salary cap this summer will be very interesting to see next year.

If you are spending up to the cap and developing players - you have to release someone to afford new contracts to younger players.

If you have headroom then it is less of an issue - so long as you can afford it.

I suspect that as French clubs reduce their wage bill, and money worries in AP and Welsh reggions bite, players will have to accept that salries are too high. Problem is as long as you have people willing to pay £250k for Ashton, £250-300k for Cole/Castro/Ayerza/Afoa/Gethin wage demands will stil stretch clubs.

Very few players will retire with huge somes of money or with the sort of profile that generates significant post playing income. Yet we now see ever more players who have no experience of anything other than pro rugby and very few qualifications.

Some clubs do promote qualifications for their academy players and many players still attend university part time LT. Though I agree it's in falling numbers compared to the days when players had trades to fall back on.

If you are spending up to the cap and developing players - you have to release someone to afford new contracts to younger players.

That should be less noticeable this year though with an increase in the salary cap and marquee signing allowing clubs some extra room for maintaining the squad. It's the level of increase I'm happy with as it allows teams to continually build towards something rather than having to strain in order to patch holes in the squad. English rugby doesn't need lots of expensive foreign imports it needs to keep hold of it's current internationals and have them playing alongside the next generation of internationals. A few key foreign players will always be there but squad stability and growth will help clubs compete on more than one front.

Sam - I do get what your saying, but some fo the Jeff sides (Leicester are a good example) have pretty strong second string sides. After all the LV= Cup winning side were not a poor team, and should realistically be capable of competing with some of the lesser sides in the Jeff.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Sam - I do get what your saying, but some fo the Jeff sides (Leicester are a good example) have pretty strong second string sides. After all the LV= Cup winning side were not a poor team, and should realistically be capable of competing with some of the lesser sides in the Jeff.

For the first 6 games of the season, they were not good enough. As shown by 5 losses and just one win against Falcons.

LondonTiger wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Sam - I do get what your saying, but some fo the Jeff sides (Leicester are a good example) have pretty strong second string sides. After all the LV= Cup winning side were not a poor team, and should realistically be capable of competing with some of the lesser sides in the Jeff.

For the first 6 games of the season, they were not good enough. As shown by 5 losses and just one win against Falcons.

Good point. I forgot they had a poor start. I guess it really is one of those awkward ones where you need to prioritise then. Although you can still get 'rest' games in against some of the lower sides.

Good point. I forgot they had a poor start. I guess it really is one of those awkward ones where you need to prioritise then. Although you can still get 'rest' games in against some of the lower sides.

Those first 6 games were a bit of a disaster in terms of results but have helped fix areas of significant problem in the first team. The likes of Harrison, Forsyth, Ford and Tom Youngs all got valuable game time which has improved them and helped during the LV Cup run. Whilst the second string may be good there are areas of genuine weakness, 9 and 10 in previous seasons with the Grindal/Staunton partnership loitering behind Youngs and Flood. Less of an issue now with Harrison and Ford but to retain those two we've had to release Grindal and Staunton. There's still a big issue in the midfield if Manu is injured and during international windows we have issues at tighthead (possibly big prop issues for next years AI window).

There's no real rest games as the AP is too competitive so normally the LVC is sacrificed (see the virtual academy team we sent to Wales). There is some squad rotation (it's why we have a big squad) but as seen against Ulster if we get a few injuries in key areas we are in trouble.

Sam - I think it's one of those things that, from this side of the bridge, it seem like the salary cap is used as an excuse for letting things slide. It will be interesting next season to see how Exeter do, as this season they seem to hav managed the league and amlin cup pretty well. With the step up to the HEC, I assume we will see if the cap makes an impact on them in one competition or the other (or possibly both) or if they can manage to keep things ballenced as they have this season.

What will be interesting is to see how Exeter handle the inevitable contract negociations with key players. The club is no longer a Championship side and neither is it fighting against relegation. Those key players who require new contracts are going to want the status of the club (that they helped get) reflected in their earnings. Exeter have pretty good strength in depth at the moment but when the big names want more money it'll be interesting to see if a) they can hold on to them and b) how they manage the salary cap then.

It's one reason why I'm impressed by the head coach Baxter is that they don't rely on any real big names pre se, but you can guarentee it'll be tough trying to hold on to the likes of Tom Johnson, Arscott and the big centre once contract renewal time comes around.

Nice avoidance of having to attempt to spell the Fijians name there Sam

I considered it Ozzy and then decided on the less time consuming method.

Just write Naqi, we'll know who you mean!

I just call him the big fijian. spelling his name is not the only problem. The WR announcer struggled with a consistent pronunciation. A minute into the first match of the season and I think he had used at least half a dozen pronunciations.

Sireli Naqelevuki, what could be simpler....

Junior Poluleuligaga however...

Poluladygaga?

That's the one!

Poluladygaga?