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Message: [QUOTE="Big Pete, post: 2727142, member: 1899"] A couple of facts that I need to bring to light before I give my answer First of all, the ESL Super League salary cap is significantly smaller than the NRL. In the NRL there's a $6.1 Million Salary cap for the Top 25 alone. In the ESL it's 1.85 Million British Pounds which converts to around 3.61 Million. Further the three ESL teams were in terrible shape. St Helens were smashed by the ESL easy-beats Salford 44-10 in lieu of the series and were in terrible shape personnel wise. No Lomax, Percival, Roby and their stocks are so shallow they had to play a backrow in the halves to cover. Then you have Leeds who were smashed by a mediocre Widnes Vikings 56-12 in the build up. Not only were they missing players to injury, they're a club in transition with a lot of their star players moving on last season. Guys like Kevin Sinfield, Jamie Peacock etc. would have made a difference for the Rhinos but they've moved on. Then you've got Wigan who were by far the form team of all three but had issues of their own. No Sam Tomkins, Charnley, Crosby, Joel Tomkins, Mossop and they lost one of their players early in the contest. All those factors created the perfect storm which completely ruined the contest between both sides. While the NRL will hold the advantage over the ESL for the foreseeable future, the ESL is getting better and will continue to improve as long as they're shown some commitment. For that reason, I believe we have to give it at least one more year to help grow the game over there and get them interested in the international aspect of the game. If scores continue to blow-out, then you'd revert back to the WCC but right now I'd give it one last push to see if the ESL can redeem itself in the eyes of the Australian Rugby League community. [/QUOTE]

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