Noble backs Super League marquee plan

The Super League is expected to soon approve a marquee player rule as a way of reversing the drain of players to rugby union and the NRL.

Salford coach Brian Noble hailed the "golden ticket" plan of his charismatic chairman Marwan Koukash as clubs prepare to bring the marquee player rule into Super League.

A proposal to make a high-profile player exempt from the salary cap is high on the agenda and expected to receive approval from representatives of the 14 clubs who are meeting at Hull's KC Stadium on Wednesday.

Koukash is one of the proponents of the idea, which is seen as a way of reversing the drain of players from Super League to rugby union and the NRL, and wants to take it further by giving clubs the opportunity to sell on their "golden ticket" if they do not wish to make a marquee signing.

"I think it's a brilliant way to get money in the game," Noble said.

"For clubs that don't have the affluence to go out and get their own marquee player, to offer it to someone else, surely it's a mechanism for spreading some money around in the game.

"What a brilliant way to compensate them.

"It's lateral thinking, it's some thinking rugby league has needed for a while in a lot of areas."

Koukash failed in a STG1 million ($A1.86 million) bid for Sam Tomkins before he went to the NRL, says he tried to lure Sam Burgess to Salford before agreeing a move to Bath rugby union and has openly talked of bringing Sonny Bill Williams and Billy Slater to Super League.

Noble, who coached Great Britain from 2003-06, has long been an advocate of re-opening the pathway for rugby union players to switch codes.

He signed Wales winger Gareth Thomas for Wrexham-based Super League club Crusaders in 2010 and is currently being linked with England centre Manu Tuilagi.


2 min read

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Source: AAP


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