Annual salary cap drama deserves a standalone weekend

If the NRL is serious about its embarrassing scheduling issues, it will give its annual salary cap fiasco a standalone weekend.

Now these ‘irregularities’ are no longer irregularities, I’m calling for the 2019 rugby league calendar to include Reprimand Round, a fixture solely devoted to storming the servers and finding a speedboat.

Rugby league’s annual cap bust has developed such notoriety that it needs to be harnessed with a dedicated weekend just like the game’s other jewel in the crown, Mad Monday.

For those unaware, slipping a small island under the table is now an annual routine like lodging your tax return, only with a $1.2 million claim for laundry expenses.

Whether it’s Melbourne bankrolling titles or Parramatta making it rain for spoons, this pastime is now as popular as bagging the Eels – and it’s not going anywhere, just like Parramatta.

As slightly overblown this week, Cronulla are the latest club to have breached, with their frivolous $250,000 faux pas revealed slightly ahead of schedule in the penultimate week prior to the finals.

This has thrown the club into comparatively mild turmoil, with officials sweating as the NRL scours their server for misappropriations like shonky invoices and Paul Gallen’s “road scholar”.

While the investigation is still in its infancy, the penalty is rumoured to depend on two factors: exactly how much was illegally paid and what can be pinned to Stephen Dank.

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

But, thankfully for Sharks fans, their 2018 squad is compliant after its value was lowered by signing Josh Dugan and Aaron Woods.

Nevertheless, the game must not let slip the wonderful opportunity this black eye presents. How does it now expose wider markets to the game’s most recognisable brands, like the Integrity Unit?

By making it an event, just like grand final Sunday.

In fact it could replace grand final Sunday seeing as none of these are legit anymore.

The planning will be extremely easy – simply fund the event with suspicious cleaning contracts, then arrange the date around the availability of the whistle-blower.

But as realistic as this sounds, there is a condition: I demand any event that celebrates cheating be conducted with respect.

We must ensure other sacred events on the NRL calendar are not jeopardised, like late kick-offs on Thursday nights at empty stadiums covered in gambling adverts or Friday nights at Brisbane.

So bring on the real Rep Round in time for 2019. Or 2025 to coincide with the completion of Manly’s appeal.

Alternatively, we could just plead with everyone to stop cheating – but we all know how that is going.