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Recent salary cap rumblings have thrown up a plethora of alternatives for a new system when the cash starts flowing into the game, including pioneering a new ‘marquee player’ arrangement.
And by pioneering, I of course mean ripping it off the A-League.
Hey, they stole David Gallop first!
But I digress.
A marquee player system most punters would realise is the process of paying one lucky bastard a truckload more than the other hopeless losers in your team because he scores the tries, and as Brad Fittler tells us, therefore gets the girls.
On the outside it’s a stunningly simple model, but in the complex, convoluted world of rugby league politics it becomes as clear as Craig Fitzgibbon’s signature.
For starters the NRL has already has toyed with marquee systems, has done for quite a few years now. Under the rules three marquee players per side could get their contract topped up by a third-party sponsor, so what’s all the fuss?
Well, while the marquee player system has been equal for all clubs, some clubs happen to be more equal than others.
Mention the words ‘marquee player’ to the Canberra Raiders and you may as well be telling them that Bill Pulver is hosting a stand-up comedy set at the Dally M Awards.
If you can’t find a third party sponsor to tip in a hundred large, not totally unreasonable when we have smaller footy teams being sponsored waste water treatment plants and therapeutic soft drinks, then essentially you’re a hundred grand handicapped.
Would this be any better with one great, big, whacking marquee allowance?
And secondly, where do we find the players to give all the cash too?
This may sound ridiculous, as obviously you just give it to the best players in your NRL side.
So who do the Melbourne Storm give it too? Smith? Cronk? Slater?
Alright, so maybe you dangle it to a gun player at another side to snare a position you desperately need.
This too doesn’t always go great guns, as players at the club might have been eyeing it off. And, what if said player is an Andy Gregory at the ’89 Illawarra Steelers style dud? Can you take it back off him?
One suggestion I’ve seen doing the rounds is that the marquee player allowance should solely be available for use of pinching British players from the Super League or athletes from other codes, so that almost overnight the 16 NRL clubs have enough coin to tempt Quade Cooper, Kurtley Beale, Digby Ioane and a whole bunch of All Blacks.
Again such a way of operating raises a tonne of questions, not to mention a whole bunch of suppressed Garrick Morgan memories and more or less Israel Folau 2011-2012.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see the best players possible playing rugby league and a couple of NRL players a little bit higher up on Australian sport’s rich list, even if it’s just so Charles Barkley can sleep a little better at night.
But let’s make the clubs work for it a bit more than looking over the Wallabies squad and saying “want that one.”
Rugby league is a team sport. If there’s extra cash let’s spread it across an entire squad, and perhaps give clubs salary cap exemptions for players scouted from second tier rugby league states and emerging nations.
NRL club’s need to be responsible for the game and their own talent development.
Not just try shelter under a couple of marquees.
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