NRL News: Holmes served breach notice, Another Roosters gun on Wallabies radar, NRL transfer shakeup

Australia international Valentine Holmes has been served with a breach notice by the NRL following an investigation by the NRL Integrity Unit into the images that appeared on social media that showed him with a bag of white powder in his mouth.

The formal charge is of bringing the game and his club, the North Queensland Cowboys, into disrepute. Players cannot be drug tested out of competition under the current CBA rules.

Holmes now must respond to the notice within five days. He has already been left out of the Prime Minister’s XIII squad that was announced on Tuesday morning and may yet face a fine or a ban for the incident.

Another Roosters gun on Wallabies radar

The latest target for rugby union’s raid on the Sydney Roosters may well be rookie backrower Siua Wong, with the breakout star set to field offers from both the Wallabies and All Blacks, as well as a host of international rugby league sides ahead of this year’s Pacific Championships.

The 20-year-old is in a unique situation that gives him many options: he has switched more than once between codes, giving him proficiency in both, and is eligible for multiple nations.

The Scots College schoolboy star was offered a deal by the Waratahs before joining the Roosters and, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, is high on the list of potential recruits for the Wallabies. The All Blacks are also sniffing around.

He was born in New Zealand and is of Fijian and Tongan descent – he played for Fiji at last year’s Rugby League World Cup – while also qualifying for Australia on residential grounds, having lived in the country since he was 15.

The only thing he can’t play is State of Origin, having moved to Sydney at the age of 15, after the cut-off for NSW eligibility.

The Kiwis are currently leading the charge to sign him up ahead of their Test matches against Australia and Samoa, though Tonga and Fiji are also under consideration.

Wong is currently on a bargain basement deal at the Roosters and has just a year left, allowing him to speak to other clubs as of November 1 under NRL rules.

Several clubs would seek to speak to him, though his current employers are in the box seat and are looking to move on Angus Crichton – potentially also to rugby union – in order to free up salary cap space.

Transfer shakeup planned with major rule change

The NRL is set to remove the ‘backflip’ clause as part of the new rules surrounding the salary cap and player transfers in a major shakeup of transfer rules.

According to reports in the Sydney Morning Herald, the backflip will be ditched and replaced with a ‘last right of negotiation’, in which he 10-day period that was previously granted to players as a cooling off period will become an exclusive negotiating period for their previous club.

The text reads: “Every player must provide his incumbent club with a last right of negotiation for a 10-day period from the date of notice that the player has received an offer from a rival Club, and that offer has been submitted to the NRL, that he is prepared to accept.”

In essence, the player’s current club will be informed that an offer has been received from elsewhere, and then will get ten days to make a counter-offer. They will not be told the terms of the offer from the other club.

Players can still turn down the offer from the rival club, opening the potential for managers to manipulate one club to gain a higher offer elsewhere, described by one agent as ‘opening Pandora’s Box’.

The NRL has also scrapped the controversial August mid-season signing loophole, moving the deadline back to June 30 in a move CEO Andrew Abdo says will protect the integrity of the competition among several other changes in effect from next season in an 18-page document sent to clubs last week.

Most notably, players will no longer be able to shift clubs after June 30, ending a three-year alteration to rules that allowed movement until the first Monday in August.

Initially only intended for the COVID-affected 2021 season, the rule had drawn the ire of fans and club bosses in the past 18 months.

It means moves such as Tevita Pangai Jr’s from Brisbane to Penrith in 2021 will no longer be legal, unless the transfer is complete by the midway point of the season in June. 

Struggling clubs had used the August deadline to clear salary cap space once out of finals contention, doing away with big-name players to assist their following year’s books.

Other moves included David Nofoaluma’s to Melbourne in 2022 and Matt Lodge to the Sydney Roosters last year, both of whom played finals football on short-term deals taking up little cap space.

However under new rules supported by clubs, the NRL and players’ union, those would not be possible unless the signing was complete before June 30 when most clubs are still a mathematical chance of making the top eight.

“This gets the balance right,” Abdo told AAP.

“It allows clubs to plan their rosters for the second half of the season based on injuries and player availability, while making sure there aren’t changes at the end of the season which impact the integrity of the competition.”

In other changes, clubs will also be able to field supplementary players outside their top 30 at any point in the season without an exemption from 2024.

Under previous rules, supplementary players had only been able to play after round 11, unless a club had significant shortages.

And players developed by clubs with less than six matches of experience in state cup or the NRL will no longer be able to be approached by rivals until after round six of the final year of their contract.

It means early approaches such as the Dolphins’ to former Penrith teenager Isaiya Katoa would have been delayed under the new rules.

All other players can be approached from November 1 during the final 12 months of their contract, but the NRL will form a working group with the clubs and players’ union to review the system and determine if a better model can be implemented.

With AAP

Sterlo knocks back medal presentation

The NRL has been left with egg on its face after declaring that Peter Sterling would present the Clive Churchill Medal at the 2023 Grand Final – without checking with the man himself.

Sterling was chosen as he was the first winner of the showpiece man of the match award in 1986, but is unavailable that weekend, as according to media reports, he is away on a golf weekend.

“As of Tuesday afternoon, nobody has been in touch and asked me,” said the legend.

“Nothing official has come through to me. When it was in the papers this morning, I didn’t know about it and my first reaction was that I have plans that weekend.

“I don’t want to appear disrespectful but I have stuff in place and that was the case for quite a while. I’m not going to make the grand final and I don’t see how that will change. It might be disrespectful when such an honour is expected to be asked of me but, unfortunately, I have plans.

“These commitments have been locked in for a while. It is only three weeks away. I’ll be playing some golf and celebrating with some friends. I’m not going to be in Sydney.”

The idea was to have Sterling present the award as the first winner, and next year, to have the second winner (Cliff Lyons) make the handover, and so on through the years.

The NRL has traditionally given the honour to the Churchill family, but broke with precedent following comments made by Rod Churchill, son of Clive, surrounding Latrell Mitchell earlier in the year.