TONY Smith supports Super League’s new marquee player rule but insists Warrington Wolves remain committed to developing their own stars.

A majority of clubs voted for the initiative, which comes in from 2016, at the annual meeting of Super League yesterday, Wednesday.

Under the terms of the salary cap rule amendment, clubs will be entitled to sign one marquee player with a notional value on their salary cap register of £100,000 if club trained or £175,000 if non-club trained.

“As a club we are very supportive of it,” said Wolves’ head of coaching and rugby. “One of the main reasons is at least it is a growth on our salary cap.

“We'd pretty much stagnated for the past 10 years or so on very similar amounts of money. It gives us the opportunity to either go and recruit or retain some of the better players.

“That’s progress and I’m pleased it’s gone through. It was inevitable that at some stage we have got to start growing the salary cap if we are to compete with other codes and other parts of the world.”

But the 48-year-old believes it is important clubs continue to invest in producing talented youngsters.

“That’s still part of our club policy,” he added. “It should be important to every club. If we don’t do it we’re going to have nobody.

“There has been a change in focus from a lot of clubs now there’s promotion and relegation; there has been a lot of buying a team that can either get you promoted or prevent you from being relegated.

“The focus changes a bit away from development, which I think is rather sad for our sport. Our club has still got a huge commitment to developing players and sees the good reasons for doing that.”

Meanwhile, Smith’s brother Brian was named as Wakefield head coach this week and the Warrington boss admits his older sibling, then Bradford Bulls coach, played a role in him arriving in England in 1996.

“I came over in ‘96 to Workington,” he explained. “Brian tipped me up about an Australian coach who was looking for some help, so he had an influence about that happening.

“I’ve worked with him on three other occasions; at Illawarra, at St George and then as a coach at Paramatta – we know each other pretty well aside from being brothers.”

Wolves’ visit to Belle Vue next month will be the first time the brothers have met on opposite sides.

“A few years ago, When he was coaching the (Sydney) Roosters, they got to a Grand Final and we were going good so we thought we might meet in a World Club Challenge,” added Smith.

“That was our ultimate way of meeting as opposition coaches. Unfortunately neither one of those things happened; him winning that competition and us winning our competition.

“There’ll be friendly rivalry, brotherly rivalry, but that can be put aside for 80 minutes and we’ll be brothers again after.”