To draft or not to draft: Is there a third way?

mushi, Many of us share your concern. Walkovers do nothing for the code. I would welcome premierships for Warriors, Titans and Dolphins. In the Bulldogs off seasons ,of course.

Yep I get that but still it's best player in goes to worst situation or he can't transfer. I just think that if I wanted to change companies I'd like to not be forced to go to the company that's a floundering joke if there's options I'd prefer.

You could also just have different contract rules for players under X age. Players all get a termination option at year 3 that can't be exercised unless they meet the hurdles. I'm not sold on the draft still, banning a player from transferring if they don't go follow the draft might see the scope narrowed to the point it's a solution looking for a problem.

My main concern there is how poorly the clubs are run and that the NRL is seemingly the lender of last resort. I'm just not sure we'd have 16 viable teams left at the end. I think players accepted a cap because it's also in their best long term interests to have stability.

In that case if I game it out it's probably just going to lead to shorter contracts less investment right as you've adjusted the payoff structure You'd need to demonstrate that the historical benefit that could have been achieved and then weigh it up against the likely cost of the market response

mushi, Why not eliminate the salary cap for a trial period of five years. No limit on TPA's.

4 is the straight forward one

I'm fine with 4 but the others: One: Contracts are firm. What you want is contracts to work differently in the NRL to what they do in the rest of the country (see my point in another post that we rally jsut must hate rugby league players as every suggestion is seemingly removing their rights). You can negotiate to be released form a contract, you can also simply abandon your side and force them to pursue you through the courts. A contract isn’t some Harry Potter unbreakable vow and never will be. Two: Some contracts already have this, if this is simply to get around the year long negotiation mess it doesn’t really achieve it because.. .we already have this Three: As you say teams can already do this, they just chose not to. There are cap issues at play also. Five: A salary cap is about wage control (and we already have an exemption which every team uses) , doing this is fine but it will just increase the cap and thus be paid by grass roots rugby league. Also it is typical that you see the better teams having more one club players so the system already rewards this. Doing this will likely just further expand that gap.

So say if a guy like Nathan Tinkler rana club... he'd literally be paid by the NRL to finish last every year?

On the TPA’s I think I’ve just figured out what the attraction of the NRL is. We must fundamentally just hate every single professional rugby league player at a deep and personal level and so we make them play this physically brutal game and then stomp on their fingers anytime a market sees value in paying them. All these great changes get thrown around have the player at the absolute bottom of the pile. Drafts, the concept of a professional team “owning” players because of where they lived at age 7 and now TPAs. These things are uncapped in sports across the globe but I only ever hear the NRL fan base running around screaming like a crime has been committed. Even college sports in the US has finally been forced to allow players to be paid TPA’s for their likeness. So we would be taking a stance on player payments that is worse than the American college system. I’m also not sure what declaring them does. The NRL already has the capacity to vet them. Do we think having a bunch of lay people, 15/16 biased and almost all without any experience in establishing the value of sponsorships, form views on fairness is going to make the world a better place? Capping TPA’s is just refusing legitimate money that would otherwise go to the rugby league system.

Issue there is you’re effectively paying people to lose, if you win your contract has to get down graded.

The obvious threshold question - sell this to me like I'm a player. We know that a draft will only succeed if we incentivise the players to not challenge it in court. Like it or not that has to be the first hurdle. Presumably the only lever we have is some kind of economic trade off. The issue there is any increase in economics to the players is going to effectively increase the cap, which, unless all the CEO's of NRL clubs suddenly change, will then increases the club grant. That club grant increase comes from money formerly going to junior / grass roots rugby league. So to solve a problem regarding access to talent from junior / grass roots rugby league we've reduced investment in junior / grass roots rugby league.

That was the entree, now for the main course, some actual ideas or suggestions... More money should be invested into junior development and to give Rugby League a fighting chance against soccer and the AFL. There should be a weight and age division competition that gives smaller players an opportunity to develop instead of being turned into speed bumps by a stream of man-child wannabes who rely on size and not skill to impose themselves on other teams. The NRL needs to be getting into schools and employing high profile former players to be ambassadors to promote the game locally. In the past, the junior development system was clear cut within clearly defined boundaries that made geographical sense to the fans supporting a team in the local area. But times change, the demographics change, young families move out of inner-city areas to the west and south-west of Sydney where housing is a more affordable dream and the strength of local juniors and the local talent junior pool is greatly diminished. Additionally, rival codes like soccer and the AFL appear to be me safer, more attractive options for parents who are worried about their kids being trampled by "kids" who look like they should be playing 3 or 4 years above the grade they have been placed in because of an accident of genetics that has them physically well ahead of the curve for their age. This is a serious threat to local junior development and a concern that many parents share. Many years ago (not that I played in one) but there were competitions that were based on a weight and age division competition. Also, televised competitions between schools were also a good way of connecting with young junior talent, their schools, their communities and their families. Perhaps this still happens but I am not aware of when or where it is televised. The NRL needs to wake up and learn how to market this game properly to young kids and their families or Rugby League will continue to lose kids to the perceived safer sports like soccer and AFL. Incentives should be offered to representative junior players to have an opportunity to train with their local team a few times a year and to get a feel for what opportunities can lie ahead if they put in the work and stick with the game. All of these things need to be done ASAP or there will not be enough junior talent involved in the game to justify an amateur draft much less provide the players to support 17 NRL teams with 30-man squads and two major lower tier competitions.

I just read this now. Good work AMD in adding to the discussion and giving us further food for thought. I particularly like the concept of "use your players or risk losing them". To stop teams hording talent like the Panthers did until Matt Burton forced Cleary's hand and he had to replace the guy who was dating his daughter and good mates with his son. I'm sure nepotism had nothing to do with it though. Your point; "Players on development contracts would be exempt and clubs could nominate a select few young players to be exempt from the draft each year" should address the concern of fans whose clubs actually develop young NRL talent. It would be water off a duck's back for the chicken lovers though, as they are more like foxes raiding chicken coops and carrying junior development players like Joseph Suualii, Nat Butcher, Egan Butcher, Paul Momirovski etc away like trophy eggs.