SAINTS boss Keiron Cunningham broadly supports the idea of introducing some form of central funding to stop the drain of talented English players to the NRL.

He was speaking in the same week that speculation circulated from Australian media sources linking Saints second row Joe Greenwood with a move Down Under, with Gold Coast Titans’ name thrown into the public domain.

Greenwood, aged 23, is now an established player in the Saints 17 after joining the club’s juniors from Saddleworth Rangers and has also caught the eye of England boss Wayne Bennett.

Cunningham said he had not been told of any approaches to Greenwood, who is contracteduntil the end of this season, and would like him to stay at St Helens.

Cunningham said: “Joe has got this year left on contract and we are currently speaking with him. If that is the case (NRL interest) it doesn’t surprise me – he’s an up and coming England international.

“If I was in the NRL and had pots of money I’d be looking at best English talent as well.

“Joe is a good player who we have developed since he was 12, 13 years old.

“We have worked with Joe, as we did with James Graham to some extent from a young age, and brought them through the system.

“You can’t blame the player. It’s a short career – if you get promised the gold at the end of the rainbow.

“If you look at the earnings in the NRL and potential earnings in four or five years you can’t blame them wanting to leave.

“As a coach I don’t want them to leave because it devalues our competition, but you can’t blame your players.

“I’ve got a few friends in Australia who are rectruiters at clubs and one of them is at the Titans so I would have assumed they would have given us a call.

“Joe is a free man to do whatever he wants but a lot of it will come down to finance I would imagine and if their cap is going to $10m we can’t compete.”

He supported the idea of doing something to limit the threat of losing Super League’s best and brightest, with the gap becoming an unbridgeable chasm.

“I did say two years ago that we could become a feeder comp. We are stuck in the mud but we have to protect our assets. A central contract system is a step forward.

“Although we can’t chuck the same money as the NRL we have got to do something, we don’t want to lose our best players or even some our best up and coming players.

“Every NRL club has a recruiter over here and they are all feeding back stuff about English players, even the juniors and reserves.

“For them a couple of hundred thousand dollars is a punt, but to us in Super League it’s a big contract. “If one in five turn up then it has saved them paying a million dollars.

“This is the era that we are in.

“We have got to do something.

“The salary cap is going up in the NRL next year it could be $10m. If you look at where we are at to where they are at – even your first tier and second tier, who would be average players over here are getting paid a little bit more than what our really good players are getting.

“It won’t stop them, but it will help clubs keep hold of some players.”