Opinion
The NRL signings system has reached tipping point – the question is no longer if it should be fixed but how and how quickly can it be done?
As the new season gets ready to kick off, there have already been 16 player switches announced for 2023, affecting 12 of the 16 clubs in some way, and that’s just the ones that have been announced.
Rugby league being rugby league, there’s bound to be many more nudge-nudge wink-wink deals which have been agreed upon that haven’t leaked out or been formally announced just yet.
The introduction of the Dolphins expansion side next season has exacerbated the existing problem but the fact that so many players have already declared they will be wearing different colours next year despite having a full season to run with their existing club should be a sure sign that enough is enough.
No other professional sport tolerates such a strange system where contracts can be signed on November 1 each year, which is more than four months before the games start in the final season of a contract and a full year before a player officially links with their new employers and roughly 16 months before they play their first game.
When you try to explain this system to followers of other sports, they are bemused.
The long-running defence of the current set-up is that previously, there was a mid-season deadline of June 30 which was abused by clubs and agents so it was abolished.
The November 1 deadline has led to several high-profile players negotiating deals elsewhere who then got out of their existing contracts early. All the drama happened in the off-season so everyone was happy.
A perfect example is when the Sharks and Panthers agreed to a mutual agreement in the 2017-18 off-season to let five-eighths James Maloney and Matt Moylan break their deals so they could swap roles. Maloney agitated for the move because he was underpaid so Cronulla allowed him to leave 12 months early because they knew Penrith would also grant Moylan a release so he could take up a long-term deal as a Shark.
Up until recently it was pretty much only high-profile stars switching clubs or extending deals at the start of the signings cycle each November with middle-tier players sorting out future contracts through the season with the fringe first-graders scrapping for whatever was left in salary caps as the competition wound up.
But now it’s not only representative-level talent who are doing deals more than a year in advance.
The Warriors poached Cronulla halfback Luke Metcalf last November for 2023 – a promising player but one who has just six NRL appearances on his resume.
Halfback Luke Metcalf signed from 2023.
Read: https://t.co/tDV4EQS8IJ pic.twitter.com/UcGRkXto09
— Vodafone Warriors (@NZWarriors) November 14, 2021
Eels forward Oregon Kaufusi, another prospect who may develop into a rep star, was snapped up in December by Cronulla for next year – the 22-year-old has made 44 appearances, all but four of them off the bench, for Parramatta.
Journeymen like Ray Stone and Mark Nicholls have been signed by the Dolphins while the rest of next year’s already-announced recruits are of representative standard.
The Eels already have five players leaving next year – Isaiah Papali’i (Tigers), and Marata Niukore (Warriors) as well as Stone, Mahoney and Kaufusi and have signed Raiders hooker Josh Hodgson.
Melbourne won’t earn much sympathy due to their previous salary cap machinations but they already have lost four stars for next season – Dolphins recruits Felise Kaufusi, Kenny Bromwich and Jesse Bromwich, and Roosters-bound Kiwi international Brandon Smith (Storm).
The Titans, Knights, Dragons and Sea Eagles are the only clubs who are yet to sign or lose a player for 2023.
Another problem of the current system is that it doesn’t stop rumour and innuendo about possible player switches – that will be all but impossible in a sport renowned for leaking more than Split Enz’s boat.
Titans star David Fifita is about to enter the second season of his lucrative three-year deal after switching from Brisbane and there has already been speculation about clubs lining up to convince him to seek a release for 2023 or that they’re keen to sign him for 2024.
Broncos prop Payne Haas looked perplexed on Monday when asked by a reporter at a media call in Brisbane about his future beyond his current deal which runs until the end of 2024. Granted, he’s locked in a legal dispute with his current management and the Broncos were reportedly keen last year to sign him for even longer but he’s still got three full seasons to play before he becomes a free agent.
The NRL has acknowledged change is needed and is open to ideas on how to improve the player signings system – 70% of coaches in a pre-season Sydney Morning Herald poll said clubs should not be allowed to recruit players more than a year out from their arrival with 89% supporting the introduction of a transfer window or multiple signings periods.
Similarly, 78% of coaches in the NewsCorp pre-season survey were in favour of a transfer window.
Playing out in the background to all this will be the NRL and the Rugby League Players’ Association trying to cut a deal for a new collective bargaining agreement for 2023 and beyond.
The players’ union will resist change. The current set-up allows its members to pretty much come and go as they please for all but about three months on the calendar.
After taking pay cuts during the pandemic and hearing ARL Commission powerbrokers spruik the game’s financial strength on the back of cost-cutting measures and broadcast deals, the players will not only not want to give any ground but will be expecting a spike in wages.
Whether the NRL moves to a system with multiple transfer windows or a hard deadline mid-season, two aspects should be non-negotiables – contracts should not be allowed to be offered or signed a full season in advance and strict anti-tampering punishments must be enforced.
There is no honour among thieves so clubs can’t be trusted to follow the rules about stealing players when they think everyone else is doing it.
The NRL should institute a sanctioning system that dishes out increasingly harsh fines for the first couple of offences and then teams lose competition points if they are continually caught breaking the rules.
It all ties into having an accountable player agent system in place which the NRL has been trying to sort out for a long time but errant managers have a history of squirming their way out of sanctions, deferring their affairs to a business partner or suddenly becoming a player’s “advisor” rather than the name that co-signs a contract.
2023 signings
Dolphins: Jamayne Isaako (Broncos), Felise Kaufusi, Kenny Bromwich, Jesse Bromwich (Storm), Ray Stone (Eels), Mark Nicholls (Rabbitohs)
Eels: Josh Hodgson (Raiders)
Dogs: Reed Mahoney (Eels), Viliame Kikau (Panthers)
Sharks: Oregon Kaufusi (Eels)
Warriors: Luke Metcalf (Sharks), Marata Niukore (Eels)
Cowboys: Luciano Leilua (Tigers)
Tigers: Isaiah Papali’i (Eels), Apisai Koroisau (Panthers)
Roosters: Brandon Smith (Storm)
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