Saints Happy to Put Cap on Spending

St Helens are not in the market for a new prop despite missing out on Garreth Carvell and yesterday declared their intention to operate well below the Super League salary cap next season.

Saints had been expected to sign Carvell from Hull but refused to pay the transfer fee made necessary when he signed a new contract at the KC Stadium in June, allowing Warrington to recruit the 28-year-old this week on a three-year deal.

However the St Helens chairman, Eamonn McManus, remains happy that the New Zealand forward Tony Puletua will be their only new face for 2009, allowing the promising youngsters already at the club to fill the gaps left by the departures of Paul Sculthorpe, Nick Fozzard, Mike Bennett and Willie Talau.

"We will not be signing anyone other than Puletua, and for once we're going to start next year comfortably below the salary cap and see what opens up," said McManus. "We're not just going to pay lip service to the new rules that are coming into the Super League over the next three years reducing the number of overseas players that clubs can employ to five by 2011. We want the young kids we've got at the club to start coming into the first team now rather than all together in a couple of years' time."

McManus also downplayed any talk that the Super League should increase its salary cap from the current £1.6m as a result of the improved television contract with Sky that will kick in from next year and land each club about £400,000 more per season.

"I think it's about right," he said. "Clubs have still been losing money as things stand, so the great benefit of the new TV deal will be making the game solvent. With the current salary cap you can still pay good salaries to good players, but it also forces clubs to invest in their youth system to ensure they are producing players of their own."

Despite cutting the basic cap figure from £1.8m over the last three years the Rugby Football League has given clubs more flexibility to invest in young players by introducing a number of exemptions, notably for Under-21s.

Andy Bracek, a 21-year-old forward who joined Warrington from St Helens three seasons ago, is expected to sign for the Super League newcomers Celtic Crusaders to help ease the pressure on the Wolves' salary cap following the signings of Carvell and the Wigan hooker Mickey Higham. The Crusaders are also set to recruit the Saints youngsters Matty Smith and Stephen Tyrer on one-year loans and may also move for Peter Lupton, who was one of four players released by Castleford yesterday.

Huddersfield have signed Joe Walsh, a 20-year-old forward who has struggled to settle with Harlequins this season, and the Papua New Guinea veteran Stanley Gene, officially 34, has signed a new one-year contract with Hull KR.