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The Sydney Solution: Fixing the NRL

Roar Rookie
15th September, 2014
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The Gold Coast travel to Auckland to take on the Warriors. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Charles Knight)
Roar Rookie
15th September, 2014
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1159 Reads

Modern day rugby league is a landscape of dwindling crowds, financially struggling clubs and a never ending debate about just how fair the salary cap really is. Over the course of the season many have asked how to fix the greatest game of all.

Some people have suggested the NRL adopt a draft system like the AFL to give all clubs a chance to challenge for the title instead of watching the same top four sides every year. However this concept is usually always met with disgust.

Others have suggested expansion into other areas of the country to make a truly national competition, once again like the AFL or rugby union, but these views are usually subjected to a verbal barrage for threatening the existence of established clubs.

So how do we fix the NRL? We should simply adopt what I have affectionately called the “Sydney Solution”. I have created this model based on the suggestions, complaints, opinions, desires and demands of Sydney club players, coaches and fans. It requires a hard line approach in which we focus on consolidating and preserving our Sydney clubs and let outside clubs fend for themselves, because after all Sydney is the heart of rugby league (don’t let the woeful crowd attendances fool you).

The Sydney Solution (Draft)

Step one: Salary cap
In the words of INXS, “don’t change a thing”. Despite the wailings of people affiliated with non-Sydney clubs the existing salary cap isn’t broken. It’s perfect. It allows clubs like the Roosters, Souths and Manly to ensure years and years of domination and keeps those pesky outside clubs like the the Warriors and Gold Coast from being a genuine threat to the competition.

The best part is that when an outside club like Melbourne start getting too successful for their own good we can use the salary cap as a reason to erase their premierships and reduce them to a skeleton. Then we can get on with watching a truly deserving and honest team like the Roosters get back up there.

Step two: Dealing with outsiders
Are you not sick of their complaining? The Cowboys keep whinging because they are continually dudded in the finals and the Gold Coast are sobbing because the AFL is driving them out of town and into rapid extinction.

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Meanwhile, Melbourne are forever marked salary cap cheats and those bloody Canberra Raiders are always dissatisfied with their lack of free-to-air coverage and other clubs poaching their juniors.

Who do these clubs think they are? The Raiders should be grateful we let them on TV at all, and as far as we Sydney folk are concerned those juniors are rightfully ours.

The Gold Coast should be content with getting a fourth chance at existence and waste away quietly so as not to bother the rest of us, the Cowboys should be satisfied with making the finals period and Melbourne…

Well, we dropped the ball with Melbourne, we didn’t stamp them out when we should have but luckily we were able to catch them cheating the cap so we rectified that error. Now we have the problem of Brisbane. Brisbane are tricky, they have money and popularity and are just a little too powerful to purge so we’ll just have to count them as part of the plan.

Step three: Expansion
No. No expansion. If absolutely necessary we can admit a team onto the Central Coast but it ends there. Expansion worked for the AFL but I think we all know who the real powerhouse code of football is.

Step four: Cronulla
A work in progress. They are a Sydney club, yes, but they are so broke and so terrible they are tarnishing the image of Sydney being the heart of rugby league. Relocation? Maybe. Merge? Don’t get your finger prints on that train wreck. Watch this space.

Summary
The ideal result would be to have all non-Sydney teams booted out of the comp and consolidate our Sydney teams in order to make our game the most popular code in Australia (trust me, the idea was formed by Sydney people so it has to work).

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We can keep the cash in Sydney where we need it most and if we ignore and exclude the Gold Coast, Warriors, Canberra, Melbourne and North Queensland for long enough they will cease to exist. Then, and only then, will the NRL be fixed.

Now it may surprise some of you to know this project has already been implemented and has been in operation for some time. We are making tremendous progress. The Gold Coast are almost gone and I am predicting Canberra to be next.

So will the NRL fix itself if we keep on the path we are on? As George Costanza once said “It’s not a lie if you believe it”.

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