There has been no shortage of activity in North West cricket circles of late as clubs prepare for the onset of 8-team senior leagues this summer; indeed compared to the total monotony of Sky TV's over-hyped Transfer Deadline Day earlier in the week, ours is positively buzzing.

The most notable feature by far is the absence of professionals, and to date only Donemana and Coleraine will definitely be bringing in an overseas player for 2013. Whether or not that is the dawn of a new era remains to be seen because while most will be delighted to see the North West adopting this stance, there is no doubt that the absence of professionals will seriously weaken our hand in the All-Ireland and Ulster cups. The likes of Limavady and Bready are probably still deliberating and may yet cast their net to foreign climes but the tide has turned quite substantially.

The focus for most clubs this winter has turned to the local talent and that has led to a ferocious debate about the matter of paying players. Here again we have a two sided argument whereby a few clubs (notably Donemana and Killyclooney) can justifiably claim to have been on the receiving end for too long. Both these sides have lost an endless stream of players in the past decade or more and it is hard not to be taken by that. Conversely though, I don't see how other clubs who bring an overseas professional year after year can criticise somebody else for "money ruining the game".

Strabane are the hot potato of the moment and have come in for serious flak as they re-direct their resources in a different direction. But here's the thing- In the past decade, every single top flight club has had a player budget, and all have spent theirs accordingly. If Strabane can bring in two or three players for substantially less than the price of bringing in a professional, then where's the problem?

Everybody knows that player A, B or C would be playing somewhere else if they weren't getting paid - nobody doubts that. But how can clubs who have thrown 10 grand at an overseas professional every year for the past 10 years take the moral high ground?

On the flip side of that there are those who would argue that paying local players is wrong in itself, but it has been going on for 30 years now and there will always be clubs (both in the North West and beyond) who will happily pay our local players if they deem them good enough. The matter then comes down to club loyalty, but lets be honest, in this day and age how many young (and not-so-young) men can afford to turn down maybe £5000 to play cricket for the summer? We need to bring a semblance of understanding into this folks - if someone is considered good enough to be paid to pay cricket and the paying club is willing and able to stump up- it's difficult to blame the player.

Certainly the loyalty shown down through the years by the likes of the McBrines, the Gillespies and a host of others is very commendable, but these are horrible times financially. Clubs are struggling - not just ordinary struggling but close to the wall struggling, and if they can stay competitive and reduce their playing budget by half then who are we to argue. If your club has harboured ambitions of playing top-flight cricket and has never spent a penny on players (overseas or otherwise) then by all means point at everybody else. I can think of very few who would fit into that category off the top of my head although maybe the St Johnston lads might argue, but the point is that one way or another, money is being spent by the huge majority on players.

In the last article I suggested that 80% of our clubs would sign up tomorrow to a deal not to pay players however the problem is that 80% isn't enough. It has to be each and every one, otherwise things will never change. The minute one player gets a free pair of gloves, the whole thing starts again.

As suggested at the outset I do sympathise with the clubs who lose players having invested serious time and money into developing them from a young age. For what it is worth that is probably the area we need to be looking at- proper compensation for the parent club from the new club. That would certainly curb the regularity of the "raids", but it would also mean that there would be some form of recompense for the Killyclooneys and Donemanas of this world.

That way we would all be happy. Wouldn't we ...?