I tend to agree with that - a total exemption for your marquee player at the top end of the salary range would seem a sensible idea, together with greater dispensation for club-trained players at the other end of the range; makes the cap go further whilst creating incentives to improve the development of young players, and goes some way to halting the NRL player drain.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jul/16/wests-tigers-benji-marshall-release-requestConfirmed his retirement[/url

Its a shame because he has been one of the most entertaining players to watch that I have seen. However time marches on and the "has been" in my first sentence applies, he probably knows himself that the clock is ticking. You can't blame him for cashing in on the yakuza or French money launderers dollars in yawnion while he still has the chance to do so as it would make a nice pension pot. Thanks for the memories, he has served RL well; time to go with the future and let the inferior game feed off the scraps of the past.

Cashing in? He won't earn the money hes been offered by Wests just playing for 1 club.

Up to him of course but I don't see why you'd leave League a few months before a World Cup. Anyone?

He wouldn't get picked?

Has his form dropped that much? I don't really follow the NRL.

Yeah, pretty much. I think it's accepted that Foran and Johnson would be NZ's starting halves.

It's all very sad really. We are talking about a player who has been a brilliant attacking force for Wests Tigers and New Zealand in the past. It is also true that he has attracted a lot of kids to play the game of rugby league.



To bow out like this, in a form slump and with a lot of anger, would be very tragic.



However I am not sure that he is going to increase his income just by switching to Super Rugby in Auckland. Given his current form they are unlikely to pay more than his existing salary of AU$750,000 (certainly not the AU$1 million a year he has been asking for from Wests Tigers). Moreover he is most unlikely to be picked as fly half for the All Blacks, and thus will not raise his earnings by that route. So he will probably play rugby union in Japan in the off season, wear himself out, and thereby become a bridesmaid to the stars in NZ rugby union.



A better option for our game would be for him to sign up with a Super League club, but the clubs who would be interested are unlikely to be able to afford more than his current salary, and even that would stretch them to their limits. Which again leads us back to the need for salary cap reform in Super League.

Marshall is a huge loss in marketing terms, but as a player he looks shot ATM. I watched him against the Broncos recently and he didn't take on the line once in the whole game. What was worse, it looked to me that the main issue was he didn't want to, as when he moved laterally with the ball gaps opened up in front of him, and he didn't look to be carrying any sort of injury. Basically he played like a player completely unwilling to put his body on the line (in defence as well).

It's a real shame his RL career will end like this, although in a massive dip in form now some of the stuff he has done on a RL field has just been out of this world, the pass behind his back to the winger against parratta being one of them.

Bet Beau Ryan is gutted