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Luke Brooks made his NRL debut for the Tigers tonight and played a superb match. His kicking game was terrific and he ran the team like an experienced campaigner, even scoring a try himself.
However, let me remind you why this kid made his debut. It is because the Tigers appealed to Ian Schubert to allow Brooks to play. The second-tier salary cap was preventing him from making his debut as the Tigers had used it all.
Now, whilst I’m not in favour of the second-tier cap it is a part of the game that every club must abide by. Schubert’s reasoning for allowing Brooks to play was that it had no effect on the finals.
But there are 16 teams, not just the Top 8. What about the Dragons and Eels? The Dragons found out how good Brooks is and now sit four points above the Eels with Parramatta having a game in hand.
Brooks should never have made his debut. This ruling by Schubert stinks of double standards. In the interests of transparency, how does one agree to let the Tigers break the cap to win one match?
So let’s say by some miracle Parramatta win their last three matches and St George lose their last two. People will say that they still had a chance to avoid the spoon, but is it not unfair that they were put in that position because the player that beat them in Round 24 was technically not supposed to be playing?
And what about Parramatta? They have been unable to debut a number of juniors this season because of the second-tier salary cap, but they have been out of finals contention for half the season.
If the NRL want to get serious about enforcing the salary cap then a couple of things need to happen.
They need to get a new salary cap auditor, not an ex-player. Either raise the second-tier cap substantially or remove it entirely and actually enforce it, with only situations such as the Matt Moylan case giving lee-way to clubs.
Brooks was not in Moylan’s position. The Tigers had a fit halfback but wanted to debut a rookie so he could play a game this season. If the ARLC want to be taken seriously then they should never have allowed this to happen.
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