Sam Tomkins is rapidly evolving into the latest in a long line of RL legends.
It is absolutely crucial that he stays in the game and isn't tempted over to the dark side.
As was mentioned by Barrie Mac on Sky on monday night, although he has signed a 5 year deal at Wigan, money talks !!!!
It would be absolutely tragic for Wigan and more importantly the sport of Rugby League if he was to cross over !!!!!

It would help keep him in the sport if he was appreciated at International level rather than being booed by his own 'fans'.

don't think he'd be that great at RU, the open space we have in league for him to run isn't going to be there for him with all the fat monsters and stupid 10 minute rucks

Sam is the type of player who the RFL should be paying a percentage of their wage to stay at wigan.

It would benefit England as a national team if the RFL introduced central contracts on top of their club wage as an incentive to keep the likes of Sam and recently Eastmond in the super league.

I like this idea. It's not just Union, but the NRL also. We've lost Ellis, the three Burgess brothers and James Graham to the NRL with more likely to follow. Some may argue that it is better for our national side, which in the short-term it is, but it weakens our competition because we're losing our best players. We need the strongest players in this competition to drive up the standards and make this competition more competitive. This will be the most benefit to the international side.

I would have a rule where one star 'homegrown' player is exempt from the salary cap. So for example:

St. Helens - James Graham
Wigan - Sam Tomkins
Hull FC - Tom Briscoe
Leeds - Ben Jones Bishop
Castleford - Joe Arundel
Hull KR - Liam Watts

Teams like Salford could have had 'Richie Myler', Castleford 'Joe Westerman', Harlequins, 'Louie McCarthy Scarsbrook', Bradford, 'Sam Burgess' etc etc.

Encourages clubs to develop their homegrown players. Encourages the homegrown players to stay at their parent clubs and it gives us a better chance of retaining our best players when the NRL or Union come hunting.

Brisbane Broncos have paid the cost of maintaining Lockyears salary at the expense of others leaving the club seeking improved deals. This in fact has not damaged the Broncos who continue to find and estabish world stars in the game down under and does stop them on the field being there or there abouts. The choice is whether to pay to keep one superstar or risk losing other up and coming stars.

Exactly, this is one of the many reasons England Cricket have been so successful, however you can point out that the international cricket game takes precedence over the county championship but having players centralised benefits the international team.

People may argue that the RFL does not have the funds to maintain a centralised contract system but we are going to need to find the funds from somewhere whether this being through marketing or increased sponsorship deals. Therefore it would be advisable to have for example 7 key players, the back bone of the england team, on centralised contracts. Or as you point out 1 per team to keep it fair.

The NRL have increased their salary cap, we cannot compete with them they will begin to take the likes of sam and has been seen with the burgesses and ellis. Rugby Union clubs seem to have money to chuck at anyone, they could poach the players as seen with Eastmond. The RFL really need to look at exemptions from the salary cap for top top quality players.

The RFL could pay 50k a year to the likes of:-

Sam Tomkins
Jonny Lomax
Ben Jones Bishop
Tom Briscoe etc etc

or start off with a centralised contract system of 10 players and work from there

and even if it was one per english club this would work out as about 600k a year! We need to give our best players incentives to ply their trade in superleague, because after all it will benefit our competition if these players are not getting poached

I read a couple of months ago that the RFL have recorded their best pre tax profit to date, lets use some of this money to benefit our game and our players!

like you have pointed out, NRL and Yawnion have higher salary caps to work with so can attract/poach the best of our players if they so choose. We cannot just increase our own cap as the clubs in the game as a whole bar 1 or 2 do not make a profit so will not have the funds to pay the players higher wages, some clubs now do not spend their full salary cap. It would have to be found by the RFL/Superleague and be given to all clubs equally otherwise rugby league will end up like football but with only up to 4 teams able to pay higher wages

Myler came through the widnes youth.

Now that he's cut the daft bits out, he certainly blossomed this season into a cracking player.

Although the Union Clubs will come waving their cheque books, I think we'll see him playing and doing well in the NRL. I can't honestly see him seeing out all 5 years of his contract, maybe being released before his final year in a player swop deal.

And every team needs a pantomime villain for the opposition fans to chelp at, we got TMFMISL, Briers at Wire, and FGB carried that flag at Stains for years!

Thankfully there are some people for whom money isn't everything. Kris Radlinski springs to mind. I do hope Kris' infulence is rubbing off on him in more ways than on the playing/training field. I am glad, however, that British RL is producing great players and see no reason at the moment why this will stop. FWIW I don't think Sam will go anywhere in the near future if at all. He seems to be very happy where he is and seems very level headed like Kris.