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MASCORD: Clubs, not representative commitments, are to blame for overload

Johnathan Thurston must be made public enemy No. 1. (Image: Dan Peled/AAP)
Expert
5th March, 2015
32

It is extremely revelatory to learn that the withering demands on NRL players that we read about every second day may not be the faults of international football and the World Club Series after all.

No, according to head of football Todd Greenberg, the amount of training the players are doing has more or less doubled in the last 10 years.

This brings into sharp focus the insidious nature of NRL clubs pressuring players to miss representative games and agitating for fewer end-of-season commitments, while flogging them on the training field.

Famously, Terry Campese could have piloted Italy into the quarter finals of the 2013 World Cup, prompting the Italian Rugby Union to attend with a view to forming a closer trans-code relationship, if the Raiders had allowed him to play.

His absence may have actually altered the course of rugby league history.

If the Rugby League Players’ Association (the ‘P’ in RLPA used to stand for ‘Professionals’, right?) is up to the task, we will soon see a standardisation of training hours.

Currently, the NRL forces all clubs to spend the same on players. The RLPA stipulates when players should return to training, giving those involved in end-of-season internationals extra time off.

The environment is so focused on promoting equality that coaches and coaching become the big difference.

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There is no limit on how much clubs can pay coaches, or on their investments in gyms, sports science and ‘sports science’ (we won’t go into that).

And making players train harder and longer belongs in the same margin.

In the world of rugby league, employers are at an enormous advantage because there is a transient workforce.

Employees are only around for a decade or less and workers in their 20s – across most industries – are usually those willing to work overtime and generally do more than they are paid for.

In this way, the RLPA can aid the efforts of the NRL to lessen the workload on players, with an added benefit being greater competitive parity.

A proper international calendar and co-ordinated representative and pre-season program are in the interests of rugby league.

Endless hours learning to wrestle are not.

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