Dave Smith's summer project: Fix the NRL

Righto Roarers, I’m off on holiday until next February. But before I head off to reintroduce myself to my family and expose my white flab and man boobs to the Australian sun, I wanted to make sure that the NRL head honcho understands what I expect to be done by the time I get back.

First off, let’s look at our Dave’s successes this year.

1. Bailed out the Gold Coast
Back in February the Titans’ monetary concerns, accompanied by a drug scandal, looked like it might take the Gold Coast club out of the NRL backwards – like so many of their predecessors.

However, Dave acted swiftly to prop up the Titans. While he probably prioritised it to make sure the NRL met its obligation of providing eight matches every full round to their broadcast partners, it was still a swiftly and well carried out intervention. Kudos, Dave.

2. Cold Chisel at the grand final
Getting the best ever Australian band to perform the pre-match entertainment was inspired. While Jimmy can no longer sing, it doesn’t matter. Don, Ian, Phil, Jimmy and Steve (RIP) are national treasures.

It was a far more appropriate option than Ricky Martin. Well done, Mr Smith.

3. Secured a new broadcast deal (sort of)
Back in August Smith announced a $925 million broadcast deal with Channel Nine for four matches a round from 2018. That was totally grouse. However, what wasn’t so grouse was that he has yet to secure the other billion required to support the game going forward from “other media”.

For other media read “mostly Foxtel”. Word is that Smith made Mr Murdoch mad by announcing the free-to-air deal separately. Anyone recall what happened when the head of the rugby league didn’t give Mr Murdoch what he wanted? Nup, me either.

Not sure it was the best strategy but it certainly showed Smith had a big, hairy set of cojones.

4. State of Origin 2 a sell out at the MCG
Now, while I certainly have been bagged for my views on the matter, I personally believe that State of Origin should contain a number of essential elements.

• Players who actually come from NSW and Queensland playing for their correct state.
• Fights. there’s nothing wrong with a bit of biffo. Go ahead, call me neanderthal, a dinosaur and an idiot. The stink is great. What caused Paul Gallen to thump Nate Myles was the big Queenslander playing a dirty, niggly, thuggish brand of rugby league.

Gallen sorted it out. Players practising cheap shots or grabbing opponents schvantzes and crown jewels deliberately for example isn’t being picked up by the refs and it sometimes requires pugilistic justice meted out.

• All the games actually played in NSW or Queensland. What the hell has Melbourne got to do with this parochial battle?

However, the MCG sell out for Origin 2 can only be seen as a massive success. Nice one, Dave.

5. Reducing the cost of finals tickets
The high cost of tickets has partially been blamed for the declining crowds. It was refreshing to see the price of finals tickets cut to encourage fans back to the ground. A great initiative, David.

Now, forgive me if I’ve missed anything Mr Smith did that was praiseworthy, that’s all I can come up with.

Apart from those efforts I reckon the NRL CEO did a lot of fiddling while Rome burned. There are a lot of issues that have arisen – and re-arisen – that needed long term practical solutions and Smith failed to do any such thing.

However, I reckon he can still fix the issues. So I’m going to set him some homework while I’m on leave. I reckon if he fixes these issues, it’ll go a long way to making the game a lot better.

1. Scrap the June 30 transfer deadline
Back in May, NRL HQ announced that they would soon introduce a 10-day cooling off period for contracts. After those 10 days the contract will be ratified.

This measure was mooted in the aftermath of the Daly Cherry-Evans backflip that basically smashed the already struggling Titans club. My question at the time was why hadn’t such a change been implemented after Josh Papalii’s backflip? Or the James Tedesco backflip?

The NRL had plenty of precedents to show them that the Round 13 rule was a disaster. Why did it take Smith three goes to learn a simple lesson?

When Smith bailed out the Gold Coast in February he declared: “We are going to make a club we can all be proud of.”

However, by not removing the Round 13 draft ratification rule, or providing the Titans with extra salary cap concessions to safeguard against a backflip, Smith basically allowed the Titans to be king hit. Not only did they not get Cherry-Evans, they lost Nate Myles and Aidan Sezer to bigger money offers. These were offers that they could have beaten if all their cap wasn’t tied up in a deal that was in no way assured.

Even though there was constant press speculation about a possible Cherry-Evans backflip, Smith did nothing. And the introduction of a 10-day cooling off period? I’ve heard nothing at all about it since.

It is time to carve that rule change in stone Mr Smith. Another fiasco won’t be tolerated.

2. Either enforce the rules or delete them
Back in June we witnessed as superb a piece of hypocrisy and selective enforcement as we are ever likely to see. It involved two rules in the NRL Operations Manual being breached, but only one was punished, the other totally ignored.

When Ricky Stuart left the press conference after the loss to the Broncos without answering any questions he was clearly in breach of the rules.

However, that breach only affected the medias reporting on the game. It did not affect the actual game or result one bit. It was a effectively a Foxtel fine. In that very game Alan Langer, in his role as blue shirt trainer, was clearly performing on-field coaching of the Broncos, an action that actually does affect the results of games.

His 375 games of playmaking experience was certainly of great assistance to rookie halves Anthony Milford and Ben Hunt. Yet there was no fine for the Broncos at all.

Mr Smith, examine your rule books closely. If you and your mob have no intention of enforcing a rule then remove it lest you look like hypocrites more concerned about your broadcast partners than the fair officiation of the actual match.

3. Stop players from blocking chasers who are trying to contest bombs
I am so sick of seeing deliberate NFL style blocking of kick chasers that it makes me want to puke. It is blatant and spoils potential spectacle, and lord knows we can use as much spectacle as we can get. The sight of the likes of Cooper Cronk deliberately blocking a chaser and not getting penalised for it has me reaching for the remote to check the AFL.

David, instruct your referees to crack down on this negative, yawn-inducing behaviour so we can see aerial contests for the ball again. The majority of them are totally blatant. It is total rubbish that must be removed.

4. Use the damn sin bin!
For the third year in a row there were more penalties given away than the previous season. However, in 2015 there were two less sin bins than in 2014.

There were just 16 sin binnings in 2015 in total.

That means that only 16 of the 2610 penalties given away this season were considered professional fouls by the whistle blowers. That’s one professional foul for every 163 offences, or one sin binning for every 12.5 matches. The worst thing is that almost 50 per cent of them were for punching, not for cynical, play-slowing, line-resetting, try-stopping fouls.

I’ve been raising this since 2013, and lots of others have joined me. Why on earth isn’t the NRL acting on these horrific stats?

Time to act Mr Smith. Get the refs to use the sin bin so we can have an open game again.

5. Institute strong salary cap concessions for juniors developed by a club
This is so simple and obvious I have no idea why it hasn’t been done. If a club develops a player from juniors then they will get salary cap concessions for a proportion of that player’s salary.

This encourages lots of junior development and involvement with league’s grass roots. Further, it rewards clubs for good junior development and is a protection against rich clubs using their third party sponsorship to poach players from the weaker or less endowed clubs. Case in point is the Broncos poaching of Milford. The Raiders identified him as a young kid of 13 and brought him through their system only for the Broncos to steal him away when it suited them.

In 2014, around the time that Milford decided he wanted to go home to play for Brisbane, Smith assured Canberra fans that he was looking at introducing concessions for club developed talent.

Smith met with the Canberra board on Wednesday July 2, 2014, and convinced them that the salary cap concessions would be introduced by the start of the 2015 season. The 2015 season has now concluded and this promise has not been honoured. If he has no intention of doing it, it would be nice if he had the integrity and courage to just say so.

It’s time to make this happen, David.

6. Increased support for the regional clubs and weaker clubs
If you look at the table below you’ll see that in 18 years of NRL football, there have been distinct haves and have nots. Three sides – the Raiders, Sharks and Titans – have not played in a grand final.

Five out of the sixteen sides – the three above plus the Eels and Warriors – have not won a grand final. Some sides seem to be in the finals most years, others barely make it at all.

Ultimately we want a competition where every side can make a serious challenge at least once every five years. It isn’t happening that way. The Roosters, Storm, Sea Eagles and Broncos have missed just 16 finals series between them in the last 18 seasons.

The Panthers, Rabbitohs, Wests Tigers and Titans – the latter of which joined the NRL in 2007 – have made just 15 between them.

There is clear inequity.

In the 18-year history of the NRL, the regional clubs Newcastle, North Queensland and Canberra have had poor records. In that time, the regional clubs have:

• Never won a minor premiership
• Only made the top four 16 per cent of the time, mostly thanks to Andrew Johns and Johnathan Thurston.
• Only made up eight per cent of grand finalists, again thanks to Johns and Thurston.
• Only won two premierships (11 per cent), again thanks to Johns and Thurston.

Just as Mal Meninga and Laurie Daley were pivotal in the success of the Raiders in the early 1990s, both through their performances and their ability to draw players to the club, Johns and Thurston have equivalent value to their clubs.

Once those stars are gone the club can quickly fall on hard times on and off the field. In order to lure and retain quality players in these areas, extra regional allowances in the form of higher salary caps and assistance from NRL HQ with attracting and affording marquee players is necessary.

This can also apply to perennial strugglers like the Titans and the Wests Tigers too.

So Mr Smith, that is more than enough to keep you busy over the summer until I get back. Now get to it.

Have a great summer Roarers. I’ll see you again in 2016.