There was a touch of irony in Wests Tigers chief executive Justin Pascoe calling for compensation, including transfer fees, for NRL clubs that develop junior players when their home-grown talent is poached by rival teams.
Pascoe’s comment was prompted by the Tigers losing three of their so-called ‘Big Four’ – James Tedesco, Aaron Woods and Mitchell Moses.
The comment evoked memories of former Tigers player, Dennis Tutty, who famously put an end to rugby league’s transfer fee system with a landmark legal case back in the late 1960s.
Rugby league was a semi-professional sport back then and the player market was a different beast to what is was today.
It seems unimaginable today, but at the time clubs were able to prevent players from playing with another team.
At the end of the 1968 Sydney season Tutty applied to the then Balmain Tigers to be placed on the transfer list, but was refused and his name was put on the ‘retain’ list.
Tutty sat out the 1969 season and commenced legal action for the right for players to transfer to another club.
After a two year legal battle the NSW Equity Court ruled rugby league’s transfer system was invalid, describing it as an “unreasonable restraint of trade.”
On 13 December 1971 the High Court upheld the decision following an appeal and the game was changed forever.
It is unlikely the NRL would consider re-introducing a restrictive practice such as a transfer fee, but the rugby league landscape has changed dramatically since the Tutty case.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s rugby league was a Sydney suburban competition and the clubs developed juniors in their own areas.
But the NRL has grown into a semi-national, trans-Tasman competition in which some clubs have large junior nurseries and others do not, creating an inequitable system.
Clubs such as Wests Tigers, Brisbane, Penrith, Parramatta, Canberra, Newcastle and Canterbury are producing the vast bulk of players, although it is worth pointing out that in many cases it is the local licenced club, not the football club, that actually invests in the grassroots.
Clubs with virtually no juniors such as Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters have fared better over the years than some of the clubs that develop young talent, which adds to the angst.
But that is a testament not just to the recruitment practices, but also the retention policies, of those clubs.
Developing junior talent has more benefits for a club than just producing stars of the future.
Only a tiny fraction of junior rugby league players will play in the NRL, but most of those kids have the potential to be eyeballs either at games or watching TV.
If you are a club with a big catchment area, then that is a potential economic advantage over clubs with limited junior programs.
So there are all sorts of inequities in the current system.
NRL clubs with good relationships with their junior clubs should be able to create new fans, but it is not as easy to ensure the best kids grow up to play for your team.
Back in Tutty’s day kids grew up wanting to play for their local team, but now players as young as 15 are shopped around by player agents.
There used to be a gentleman’s agreement between the teams that they would not poach each other’s young talent, but those days are long gone.
The demographics of the game have completely changed, but the club boundaries relating to junior catchment areas are virtually the same as in Tutty’s day.
Maybe those junior boundaries are not relevant anymore. Perhaps a centralised model is required to ensure a fair slice of the junior pie for everyone.
There are an estimated 120,000 registered junior players along the east coast of Australia. If you divided that number equally among the clubs, you could have academies responsible for developing groups of 8,000 kids each.
This would be a fair and equitable way of distributing juniors among the clubs, keeping in mind development and recruitment are two different things.
At the end of the day the clubs are all in the same market for the best talent. May the best club win!
Sport lover
Guest
Good luck with that Gillon
mushi
Guest
That's great Mike form Tangental Taree. But the NRL team, which aparently is entitld to slave like ownership, isn't South Syndey Juniors. So when Crowe etal bought the club did they get the slave master rights to the kids from the juniors thrown in?
mushi
Guest
The bigest concession is if a junior plays first grade you've got some guy on 100k producing like a 250-400k player
Ben
Guest
Souths may produce great Juniors NOW but as a Bunnies fan I honestly feel like that it isn't going to be that way in the future. I live in Redfern and this whole area is completely rich and gentrified now and with median house prices around here of 1.5 million and over it's only going to become more and more like the Eastern Suburbs. Trust me the kind of kids growing up here aren't going to be playing league in the future. Our fans like to stick it into Easts and how they have no juniors in their traditional area anymore but in all honesty, I reckon it's going to be the same for the Souths junior area in the future as well. If anything Easts have been smart in building up their Central Coast Juniors connection. Food for thought...
Mike from tari
Guest
Your wrong about the Broncos, the development of Juniors in Brisbane is carried out & funded by Redcliffe, East Tigers & Wynnum Manly Leagues Clubs, Aspley & Arana Hills Leagues Clubs, the Broncos do assist in funding Souths & Logan & Norths as they don't have big successful clubs in those areas, the Melbourne Storm have an affiliation with East Tigers & the Sunshine Coast Falcons, where in the Falcons case they have based their Under 20's players.
Mike from tari
Guest
South Sydney Juniors fund the South Sydney junior competitions & have done so for the 60 years that I have been in existence, so get your facts right.
Pickett
Guest
Nail..head...hammer.
Magnus M. Østergaard
Roar Guru
There already is a concession for players that come through the junior ranks. IMO its just not big enough.
Justin Kearney
Guest
Joe Check the website of the sydney combined competitions. This is pretty much already in place.
Justin Kearney
Guest
Is his name 'clipper'?
mushi
Guest
That should be the job of the ARLC, junior sport isn't about producing NRL footballers
mushi
Guest
It's funny right we want to be a big boy sport but no other sport whinges about player movements like ours
uglykiwi
Roar Pro
Have a look at Canberra. They used to spend millions on junior development, but after losing the milf, and received no support from the nrl; they cut there investment by a large percentage. They decided to buy players, and look where that decision has got them. Why develope players when another team can come in and poach them with big dollars, the team that has developed them gets nothing in return. What the nrl should look at, is a compensation fee that one club must pay to another club for signing a jr that has received support from a club: yes, rules must be applied and age restrictions, etc. But we should be encouraging the clubs to pump money into he jr system, but we are not. We leave that to the afl!!!!!
mushi
Guest
Are souths Juniors and the bunnies under the same onwership?
mushi
Guest
Souths Juniors is actually one of the beacons for why the junior stuff is a complete beat up. Sydney Juniors is rich because it’s a tax sheltered casino. Nothing looking at their books suggests they are in the business of developing junior footballers rather they are using that to create a veil of legitimacy to siphon cash from, sorry service selflessly, the local community. Source of revenue $42.5m - net clearances from poker machines (includes offsetting winnings) (79%) $3.9m – bar (7%) $4.3m - food (8%) Sundry revenue (less than 1%) is more than football department revenue! The net cost of the football department is 1m. So they charitably chip 1m of the 42.5m taken from the community via the poker machines back into the local league scene… Good blokes there, definitely worth unquestioned loyalty. The guy running around in the junior league has basically created the façade to generate tens of millions of dollars per year and now you think that the NRL club from the same area (privately owned mind you) is entitled to subjugate their rights to find employment? What a toxic supporter culture.
mushi
Guest
Aren't the Bunnies a privately controlled team? How does that give them salve mastery over the entrants to a competition run by a separate entity? I would love to see the agreement on that sale 37 laptops, 87 tackling bags, the indentured servitude of 12,473 children
mushi
Guest
Again how is that “stealing with money”. Little known fact an NRL club doesn’t get the rights to buy and sell a human being when their parents pay for them to play in a local rugby league competition largely funded by other entities. The “local” NRL team doesn’t own them, even their parents – which have invested the most capital – don’t own them. It’s like you think we’ve got some weird sort of feudalism where NRL clubs are entitled to the servitude of every son born within their borders. Every NRL team recruits from outside its little fiefdom lending no credibility to anyone arguing that NRL teams are the natural zenith of the local rugby league mountain. They “invest” in juniors (well really they don’t invest much per person until late teen rep players...) for the same reason every other company invests in young talent. It’s cheaper and generally more effective in the long run if you can retain them.
Pickett
Guest
What are you talking about Dustbin? I was at the Sheaf last year and they were playing NRL on the big TV. Have you got 3 braincells just like 3 Teef?
Pickett
Guest
Skim latte, and don't forget the fried tofu.
jeff dustby
Guest
enjoy your chai lattes and yoga on the beach. see you at icebergs with your collar pulled up