I think that's way too forward-thinking for SARU.Blake wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:03 pm I don't mind it at all personally. It's part of professional sport. The risk is that some teams become too stacked with players and dominate for extended periods of time, but that also ends up working itself out eventually when they collapse under a massive salary bill and start bleeding their successor players to other teams as they start getting impatient being unable to unseat incumbent superstar players.
In the mid-2000's the Bulls had depth 3-players deep in pretty much every position, and a decade later they were in a massive rebuilding phase.
What I would love to see at some point is a NFL-style draft system, where promising youth players are allocated to struggling unions to shore up their player stocks and keep everything competitive. These smaller unions can then sell/trade these players to richer unions if they are low on cash, or keep them in the hope to attract fans and sponsors and be proper title contenders. The unions should then also be compensated based on how the junior players are ranked in the draft to incentivise youth development in their catchment area.
Unfortunately, with so many offers from Europe for SA players I don't think it would work. It only really works in the NFL because it is:
a. The premier American Football league
b. A monopoly so there isn't really anywhere else for players to go
But I still think it is great way to ensure that "lesser teams" get some decent injections of talent and/or cash.
It's still important for teams to have a handful of players to cross the 100 cap mark. Someone who is good enough to start every match if necessary, but probably not good enough for the Boks. Like what Jacques Botes did for the Sharks, for example. Every team needs that player who keeps the soul of the club going as other players come and go.
