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The NRL have released their blueprint for the future which will “take the game forward over the next decade“.
The most important part of this is Richardson’s statement that, “we have started a discussion about the way forward.” I can’t believe he has spent a year putting this together.
Any NRL forum regular could have come up with this in one day. I’m hoping that the expanded version makes more sense than this bullet-points version.
Change NRL squads to 36
Why? If you scrap the 20s to save clubs money, won’t they immediately spend the savings on the extra NRL squad? Further, if the Platinum League idea goes ahead and not every NSW-based NRL club has a direct counterpart in that League, what happens to all those spare NRL-contracted players?
The suggested Canterbury-St George-Sutherland team would have 50 spare NRL players available each week.
Restricting players from making their NRL debuts until the year they turn 19
No player is to be signed with an agent until he is 17 – and contracts for these players should be for a maximum three-year term
The biggest fear regarding this point seems to be that, if a player has left school and can’t make money playing league, they’ll take up another sport. Changing the contract age from 16 to 17 isn’t such a big deal although a few kids might drop out of school – most “payments” at that age are directly education-related.
I guess an 18-year-old could still get a part-time deal with a Platinum League club. The maximum three-year deals for 17-year-olds sound good although I doubt it will, in practice make much difference. I’m sure kids and their agents would realise that, if they’re 17 and someone’s offering them a 5-year deal, they probably command significant market interest.
Restructuring the National Youth Competition into a state-based under-20 competition and introducing rookie contracts for the start of the 2018 season with each club allowed to sign three rookies each year on two-year contracts
I don’t mind changing the 20s to state-based leagues. The biggest losers here would be New Zealand and the Cows. I think televising the NYC was a strong drawing point for the Warriors to recruit juniors away from rugby union, although they could probably still do a deal to televise all their home 20s games if they join the NSW 20s League.
The Cows will still have all the transport costs for a 20s team so they may not save as much as Sydney-based clubs.
I don’t like the restriction on signing three rookies per year. Rooster-haters will like it because it stops Easts from buying everyone else’s juniors. The losers will be the clubs who produce more than three good juniors per year. They will have to let them go, defeating the whole purpose of junior development.
Revamping and upgrading the State League into a Platinum League to spread the footprint of the competition into all the areas that play rugby league
This should be seen in conjunction with amalgamating the Country RL and NSWRL, and the scrapping of City versus Country. I can’t decide on this point until I see a more concrete proposal regarding the zones and where they would be based.
Easing player welfare by considering additional leave
This includes the creation of a formal international window over an eight-year period and reducing the number of five-day turnarounds.
Firstly, the five-day turnarounds should have been fixed already in the 2016 draw. I don’t know why that didn’t happen. The formal international season is up to the RLIF to work out. The additional leave is simple enough – clubs just push back the start of pre-season by two to four weeks.
Overall, I’m very underwhelmed.
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