Exactly! How do you think G.I.’s signing made the talented long serving Broncos feel? Kind of like EVERY AFL player now feels since the Hunt & Folau signings. Disrespected, unappreciated, and well they should. I understand bringing in a player to fill a hole in your team is what you do. But, as has been mentioned in the sports pages around Australi over the past week, do the Broncos REALLY need Inglis? How about the kid who thought he could have a go at a career in centres coming up through the clubs U20s team? What does that say to him? How do you think his club just made him feel by doing that, by signing an outsider to “his” position on the big club? Here we have the clubs, who like to play the role of the victim when players want higher salaries, actually serving as the catalyst to perpetuate this mercenary culture in their sport!

Since G.I. is from the Storm, let’s look at them. Who has Bellamy gone after from other clubs over the past five years? Their superstars? No, their cast offs! OK, every team doesn’t have a genius like Craig Bellamy who has the sharpest eye for spotting talent in rugby league, but too bad. Life’s not fair, maybe the rest of the clubs need to focus more on their scouting departments and less on pillaging other teams for their best players.

We are in complete agreement, Jef, teams are like families, and you need to look after your own before you worry about someone else’s. Buying players just because you can will do more harm than good to your team and to the rest of the league.

I love sports! Always have, always will. For me following sports is about friends and family, a sense of community, tribalism as it has been stated above. Back in New Jersey, where I come from, there are three types of sports fans. In southern Jersey they follow the Philadelphia teams: Eagles, Flyers, 76ers and Phillies. In the norther part of the state we are divided into two camps: Old New York and New New York. The first group, usually having longer, deeper family ties to the country and the area support THe Yankees, The Rangers, The Knicks and the Giants. The others support the Mets, Jets, Nets and Islanders or Devils. There is no mixing, no cross pollination. You definitely belong to one of these groups, whole heartedly, for better or worse, til death. It is that simple, it is that black and white. Me, I’m from the Yankees, Rangers, Giants, Knicks tradition. Why, because my dad was, and his dad was, so was his. Same thing on my mom’s side of the family (when it comes to NY sports, “mixed marriages” just don’t work).

In 2002 I moved to Melbourne, as a good local citizen and passionate sports fan, I dove right in to the local sports. I confess that I still don’t understand Cricket properly, but I bought memberships to the Melbourne Storm (the only rugby option in town, yes, I just got my Rebel membership) and the Hawthorn Hawks (I settled in Hawthorn). With both of these teams I feel I hit the jackpot! My affiliation with these two clubs has given me more tangible benefits than any of the teams I grew up with! Both the Hawks and the Storm are very fan friendly. Both hold fan events throughout the year that are easily affordable and give the fans ready access to the players. The Hawks have weekly dinners each Thursday night at the Tower in Hawthorn where during the season you can meet and interact with current players and coaches and in the off season with past players and coaches. Over the past eight years, I have met and enjoyed genuine conversations with many players form both teams. In America you NEVER get that kind of access to the athletes, usually only getting up close for 5 seconds at an autograph show where you paid big money to get in and then pay again to get their autograph or a photo with them. I hope Australians truly appreciate how good they have it with their sports down here and how accessible the teams and players are. Maybe it is because the pro codes here are still new in the grand scheme of things and only a generation removed from being amateur clubs, so they still have that down to earth approach, I don’t know, but I know I love it.

I don’t follow the north American sports closely anymore because even with the internet it is too difficult. I’ll always be a Yankees/Rangers/Giants/Knicks fan because I couldn’t stop doing that anymore than I could stop being Polish/German, it is in my blood. I can however embrace my local sports scene and follow a team from each code and cheer them on in person or on the radio or television each week, wear my colors proudly, and enjoy heated debates with other teams fans. In a funny aside, even though AFL is basically a secular religion in Victoria, you have not experienced true sports passion until you have been in the room with two NY Yankees fans going at it in a heated debate about the Yankees! Two fans (usually brothers) of the SAME TEAM, arguing about various aspects of THAT TEAM! It is hilarious, sometimes scary, but truly impressive to watch.

Switching loyalty for me, even as a Gen Xer (born in 1970) has never been an option. It wouldn’t matter if a relative played for another team, I still couldn’t switch allegiances, in fact there are certain teams that a family member could work for that would get them disowned by the rest of the family. I understand the intense hatred everyone has for Manly and Collingwood, I get it. Its not something I am a part of, because I didn’t grow up here, it hasn’t been ingrained in me since birth, for instance like hating those other 8 team I mentioned above (as well as the Montreal Canadiennes and the Boston Red Sox). As a good Hawthorn supporter I have trained myself to hate Essendon and will actively cheer for who ever is playing against them each week (even if the win would hurt the Hawks, again this is passion, it has nothing to do with logic or common sense). As a Storm fan I do hate Manly, but only a little more than I hate the rest of the NRL teams (except the Warriors) because as a Melbourne Storm fan you really do feel that it is us against everyone else in the league-the other teams as well as the administration. I love that feeling! It is similar with the Yankees, either you are a Yankees fan or you absolutely hate the Yankees. It is brilliant, and this irrationalism, this passion as well as this tribalism is what makes being a sports fan worth while!

Win or lose I’ll always love the Hawks, Storm and Rebels. If the Storm fold, I’ll stop watching league. I go for the Storm because they are my local team, I’ve met the players, coaches and staff at the club over the years and they have been wonderful to me, generous with their time, so I have a real connection there on a personal emotional level as well. I’m sorry the Hawks don’t train at Glenferrie Oval anymore (but I still run laps around it each morning), I understand the move to Waverly-new state of the art facilities, better for the players and admin staff, and they still have the family day at Glenferrie. I do like the fact that they play some home games in Launceston each season. That rickey old stadium has the feeling of a local club ground like Glenferrie, which is a much nicer atmosphere than the MCG or (whatever it is called this week)Dome. AND it gives me the perfect excuse to spend four long weekends each year in Tassie, which is a beautiful destination.

I mentioned earlier about getting my Rebels membership, but until recently I have been a Chiefs fan. I’ll fly over for fewer Chiefs games now for sure. I do love NZ and I stay with friends locally when I am there who are Chiefs members. I will definitely fly over for any Chiefs Rebels games. But I live in Melbourne, I went to the Rebels games when they trialed them down here a few years ago, and I will be able to follow them closely here, going to every home game, going to club functions, being a part of the home town crowd.

I guess to sum it up for me, being a passionate sports fan is about a sense of family, tribalism if you will, pride of place, or community and a sense of belonging. I am a Melbournian, I hate all things Sydney, and I stick proudly by my local teams.

OMG, player agents are lawyers, and lawyers are being dishonest!?!?! Say it isn’t so!!!
Again Gallop is creating a smoke screen to cover for his administration’s incompetence and the incompetence of the NRL auditors, who signed off on the Storm’s budget for five years, only to end up with egg on their face after being tipped off by a former Storm employee with a grudge, or else they would have been none the wiser.

I don’t object to this in principle, I agree that it is a good idea for transparency and accountability. However it is still only putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. The real problem is the salary cap in its current form. It does not work and it needs to be scrapped completely and reworked into something that does. Gallop refuses to face this. He does not want to admit he is wrong about the cap. He doesn’t want to admit that the NRL system that fails to reward teams discovering and developing talent and assisting them in keeping them.

The Storm got caught doing what the other 15 clubs are doing, they just got caught (and they were only caught because a former insider tipped the NRL off, it could happen to your team). All teams are finding ways to keep their players on their roster, legally or otherwise. They don’t want the talent that they put so much into going over seas or worse ending up playing against them. Before folks start shouting down about how “extensive” the deception was, why not wait until ALL of the clubs are so closely scrutinized, and so thoroughly audited. Put down your stones and gently close the doors to your glass houses because you would have to be incredibly naive to believe that in a competitive professional business that everyone isn’t doing EVERYTHING and ANYTHING for any advantage they can get.

Gallop needs to “nut up” and admit the problem, and allow the clubs, the players association and the new Independent Commission sort out an equitable solution for all involved. By sticking his head in the sand, denying the problem and trying to distract people with his little quick fixes, he is avoiding the real problem and he is fooling no one but himself!

“Does anyone honestly believe an extremely wealthy club would develop its own juniors,when it could simply nick the stars of the other clubs.A short term attack for a long term gain.I sometimes ask myself this question when I look at the Roosters.
I want all current teams to survive.”

I agree that the league needs at least 16 clubs to be a viable professional sports league, and I would like to see all of the clubs survive, even Manly because after all, everyone needs a team to hate as well as love ;-).

This may be irrelevant to the small time nickel and dime Australian sports market, I’ve only been here 8 years (and staying permanently now) but coming form the US where sports are so massive AND national (if your city has a football team, it also has a basketball team, ice hockey team and baseball team) as opposed to regional like here in Australia, but I would still like to throw up the NYC example. The NY Yankees, one of the most famous sports franchises on the planet, has won (since the era of big money began in the 70s) seven championships. That’s seven in over 40 years.

That is not terribly dominant when you consider that the Yankees are the living breathing embodiment of your worst case scenario-yes, all MLB clubs have 3 levels of feeder teams, but the Yankees prefer to use the rest of the pro league as their “farm team”. They allow others to develop talented players, and as they emerge as superstars (say after their initial 3 year contract) the Yankees make an unmatchable offer to them, and effectively build a team of all stars. However they do not dominate the sport, they do not win the championship year in and year out AND new young talent keeps coming into the league through the various feeder clubs in the US, Canada and US territories.

There is an old sports axiom “A Great Team will Always beat a team of greats”. Craig Bellamy has continued to build great teams to great success, but then has them torn apart by a cap system that simply does not work (unless you are the Broncos). To prove this axiom even further look at the NSW Origin teams of the last several years. Game after game the selectors assemble the best players from NSW but play them out of their natural positions just so that they can say they put all of NSW’s best players on the paddock! Each game the QLD team, the core of which has been playing together, win or lose, since 2004, still whups them. I’m not saying that the QLD isn’t made up of greats, many are the best at their position in the world, but others wouldn’t be as good as some of their NSW counterparts, but they are playing in their natural position with players that they are familiar with and therefore they keep winning. Without a true team mentality a team of all stars is always going to play like a group of individuals. Chemistry in an X Factor in sport and it develops through familiarity, shared vision, confidence in those around you. The Blues have a team of great players but there is no trust or familiarity and that holds them back from playing to the best of their ability. So I think that the All Star team mentality isn’t as big an issue as you are making it. Players would stay put, not all of them would chase the $$$. Why isn’t Thurston a Bronco? He and Lockyer combine well together for QLD, he was recently out of contract, why didn’t he jump ship? If the Broncos have room for Inglis under their cap surely they could fit JT.

Although it pains me to admit it, I don’t believe that the majority of players are as mercenary as your fears makes them out to be. Remember we are not just talking about the men on the field, but their wives and children having to move, lose friends, change jobs and schools. I just don’t believe that the upheaval would be so massive and that anyone worth anything would rush to those five teams and abandon the rest of the league.

At least we are in agreement on concessions for developed and long serving players, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on the rest of the solution (not that the idiots running the NRL will listen to us anyway).
Cheers.
D

Good point Rob, allegations of Harrigan being crooked have been made in the past. Let’s hope for the sake of the game that he is merely incompetent, but with either being true, he should still be fired and banned for life.

I can’t believe ANYONE, EVER defends David Gallop and thinks that he is doing a good job running the league, unless they mean running it into the ground. He seems to do his best to alienate fans, players, investors and now the players association. Brilliant. The NRL is not the sports juggernaught he seems to think it is, it is a regional sports code trying to pretend to be a national sports code, and he is doing himself and the league no favors with his alienating form of management.

Gallop is instituting this rule because he was unable to catch any Storm players to burn at the stake in his recent witch hunt following the Storm’s administration’s salary cap breaches. I do not have a problem with this rule, think it will be good for the players to be more involved and educated about their earnings. This ensures that the players will understand their obligations to the club, club sponsors and 3rd party businesses that they are receiving their incomes from. I also do not believe that they players association would have been opposed to it at all, it makes perfect sense and protects everyone, but now the players association may be obstinate about it because the NRL has thrust it upon them with no proper prior consultation. Had the league admins brought this up to the pa, I’m sure they would have signed off on it, now they have an unnecessary fight on their hands that could have been avoided entirely by competent administrators.

Get rid of Gallop, get the IC in place and then we will be able to move forward as a unified, well run code.

Exactly, Kid, that is exactly what Gallop seems to be trying to move the league to.

I must respectfully disagree, Crosscoder, which is what makes these forums so much fun!
In your example, with the current salary cap and Brisbane’s massive list of financial backers, they could already stack a team like that by simply paying them all the league minimum wage and allowing their 3rd party sponsors (c’mon, let’s call a spade a spade here) top up all of their contracts. $4.1 (that’s less than $2 million all up, and it makes them look like model Cap-Compliant Citizens that Gallop could use as the poster team for how well the cap works.

Cynical as I often am about the motivations and character of professional athlete, I believe that pride and pride of place still count for something with them. For those who have been scouted and developed by a team, so long as there are no personality clashes at the team-ie. player/coach hating each other, I believe that the players would still want to stay where they began to build success.

Slater, and co. have all wanted to stay put, because they all started with the Storm and they built something together there, and the club has a positive culture that is friendly to the players and their families. I’m sure plenty of other clubs have similar cultures, with players over the years forced to leave for cap reasons who would have preferred to stay. The salary cap in its current form is clearly not the answer, maybe the cap plus concessions for long serving players and for players that clubs have recruited and developed to allow them to stay at the club so the club can retain them rather than have them pinched.

In the US, the NBA has a salary cap, it is a joke, but it is there and an NRL concessions based system could work similarly to the NBA cap, but better. Under the NBA cap, when you re-sign players on your team, who are already on your roster, they don’t count toward the cap, only new recruits count against your cap. Didn’t you ever wonder why Michael Jordan never played for the NY Knicks, La Lakers or Boston Celtics, instead of the lowly Bulls, who nobody had ever heard of before MJ arrived? It is because once he was a Bull and emerged as the talent that he is, then no one else could afford to sign him. Something similar (but less drastic) could be put in place for the NRL.

Let’s take Greg Inglis, because he is the current hot property in the NRL, as an example. He was discovered as a skinny 14 year old kid by the Storm scouts, he was recruited by the Storm and developed by the Storm and grew into a world beater, Golden Boot /Dual Premiership/Origin winning superstar by the Storm. Logically, if you want to strengthen the league and ensure PLENTY OF FUNDING for grassroots recruitment and development (as the QRL keeps whining about in their selfish attempts to block the IC) then you need to help clubs keep the talent that they discover and develop. Maybe a system of concessions, based upon term of service, maybe broken down into 3 year increments could reduce the amount of his salary that counts against the Storm’s cap. However if the Broncos (again, for example) want to sign him, then he must be paid an equal or higher salary, based on his player rating value, and 100% of that counts against the Broncos cap. No gray area, if you want to sign Player X, he is valued at $X then you have to be able to afford all of that under your cap. Simple. Accountable. and the clueless NRL cap auditors, who signed off on all of the Storm budgets for the past five years, have the benefit of a more transparent system. Thoughts, anyone? I’m just thinking out loud here…

Agreed, the NRL would do well to follow the AFL model in how it looks after its clubs, particularly its non-heartland clubs (not just the Storm but in future hopes of expansion). The NRL has, however, treated the Storm like they are an AFL which it is competing against. The NRL vs the Storm mentality is felt by many in Melbourne. Rather than treat the Storm like part of the league and be inclusive with them, it seems that the NRL always feels like they need to be “against” the Storm. It makes no sense to me, but for some reason the NRL, maybe due to fan pressure or the fact that it is run by too many governing bodies with an “old boys club” mentality who resent there being rugby league in Melbourne at the (perceived) expense of another “heartland” team.

Hopefully going forward the new Storm board will review 3rd party deals more wisely. you can count on the players agents being a LOT more savvy about organizing them going forward. Inglis is leaving because he wants to go, you can’t think for a minute that there haven’t been Melbourne businessmen lining up to offer non-Storm sanctioned 3rd party deals to Slater, Smith, Cronk and the others.

As for the overall benefits of the salary cap, I confess that I am in the camp if those who believe that it lowers the standard of play in the league not levels the playing field. People have been complaining about the Broncos getting Inglis, but it seems they are cap compliant, they just have tons or non-affiliated backers willing to offer their players massive 3rd party deals. They can retain their stars and attract others (gaining their 2nd Storm superstar centre in 3 years). Clearly the cap does not work. The Broncos have hired a team in their front office who have been able to figure out the ways around it and canvas the area for non-sponsor businesses to agree to invest heaps of $$ in their organization. In the NFL, which has been mentioned a few times, has a hard cap and a fair draft system (something that WOULD level out the NRL talent distribution, but they ready spat the dummie and chucked that in) each team employs a full time salary cap staff whose entire job consists of crunching past, present and future salary numbers to ensure that they are compliant AND to determine how muhc money they have to spend going forward.

If you want a level playing field and a higher quality of teams and a higher retention rate of players then do away with the cap. Let the NRL give each team the same amount of money to start with, let’s say the current “cap” of $4.1M. Then all of the teams start on a level playing field. What they and their sponsors do from there is up to them. Those with good marketing teams, passionate cashed up supporters, will have more money to spend, but how is that different from what is happening now? It is already going on to a large degree, but now the league retains a pretense with which to punish some teams for not doing it as well as others.

Dump the cap and let the free market even itself out. As has been pointed out by others above each team can only employ eighteen players and can only field 13 at a time on gameday. Unless the talent pool drops to the level where there are only 20 good players left in the game then it cold be an issue of one team trying to stockpile all of them. Even then, I doubt that every single NRL player would want to sign with The Broncos (for example). After all, superstars come in all shapes and sizes, all of the best players don’t play the same position and team can only hold so many players at each spot.

In American sports Baseball and Ice Hockey do not have salary caps. Yes the two richest teams the New York Rangers (NHL) and the New York Yankees (MLB) do tend to have the highest salary totals in the league each year but the Rangers have won 1 Stanley Cup Championship since WWII and the Yankees have won only 7 World Series Championships in the past 45 years. So no salary cap does not automatically mean dominance and success is guaranteed. Will some teams benefit more than others? Yes, particularly in the first two or three years, after that the market will balance itself out. All of the best fullbacks/centres/wingers, etc. can not play for the same team, only one gets to take the field at a time. Sure the initial salaries might get ridiculous but again they will come back down to Earth and balance themselves out (no team has unlimited financial resources). I say let the free market and free agency strengthen the league and increase player retention (as well as attract more players from abroad).

Excellent point again about the Storm’s “Blackhole” status, people forget to include the fact that they are the sole flag-waver for RU in Victoria and those expenses are included in their figures, where the QRL and NSWRL cover those costs in the northern states.

Interest, media coverage and membership as well as revenue has continually increased over the years, particularly the past five. True the recent scandal may hinder them, as the AFL-Centric Melbourne media will use this as an opportunity to further disparage the Storm and Rugby League in the AFL heartland, which is a shame. Also with the Rebels launching next year, it will hurt interest in rugby league in general. Where league is an alien concept in Melbourne/Victoria, rugby has a long history there and will instantly thrive and enjoy plenty of support and interest (as much as the AFL-centric media will allow). Going forward the Storm face an up hill battle, but thanks to their recent success they are better placed to deal with this.

I hope that they do succeed and thrive again, it is not only good for the NRL (which league officials and non-Melbourne supporters are loathe to admit) but good for the Melbourne sports scene. Melbourne wears so many hats: “Festival Capital”, “Fashion Capital”, “Foodies City” , “Sports Capital” but until now that sports capital is because they host a tennis Grand Slam for two weeks a year, THE major Cricket test the week after Christmas, the Grand Prix (which loses $36Million+ each year) and has a team (now) from all of the sporting codes. All codes are not equal, they are not treated equally by the media, nor do they enjoy equal representation.

One team each for League and Union is a start. Getting the Melbourne sports fans behind them is another thing (hell, A-League which has only been around for 5 years already has a 2nd team in Melbourne). Promoting the code and showing strong support for the Storm in the Melbourne market is what is needed. Remember the Storm alone represent the “N” in the NRL, so to keep the league from becoming a farce or a regional attraction, the NRL needs to sort out its salary cap issues, and get on the front foot with promoting teams outside of Sydney.

Expansion should only be considered after the league has stabilized the teams it already has. If they don’t plan now and go forward half arsed like they usually do, then the result will be teams going under and struggling, flailing around in the dark. Does the NRL really need two more “heartland” teams? Shouldn’t they worry about ensuring the future of the clubs they already have in place?

Of course Wayne Bennett is philosophical about the call, he has never had an important call because for some reason the NRL refs seem to fear him. It is a rare day when you would ever see a questionable call go against a Wayne Bennett coached team. The Broncos benefitted from this protection for years and now the Dragons are reaping the rewards of the fear that Bennett instills in the NRL refs.

Good point! If Bill didn’t realize the mistake until he saw it at home, and unlike the refs, the commentators even get it right most of the time, he SHOULD stay home and phone in his calls after watching the tv replay and listening to the commentators input.

Amen. Surely all league fans have suffered enough at the whims of Bronco Bill! Just get rid of him! His firing is long over due. He has demonstrated repeatedly over the years that he is either corrupt or incompetent and either one is NOT acceptable. He needs to be out of the game.

That is a weak argument on the the league’s behalf (this isn’t directed at you, John, I’m just following up your point). What Australia needs to do is raise the standard for referees in this country across the board. The amateur idiots that get used week in and week out are inadequate to say the least. It was mentioned above that the NRL copies the NFL on everything, then they should copy them on their standards for referees.

The referees in the NFL are all successful professionals-doctors, lawyers, CEOs people who make life and death decisions that affect peoples’ lives and livelihood every day at their real jobs. Then on weekends they use that same professionalism and fearlessness and make the hard calls on the weekends at the NFL games. They get year round training, in the rules of the game, and the video technology at their disposal, and they all have to maintain a high level of fitness so that they can keep up with players as they run down the field (or at least get themselves into the best position to see the play. The standards are high but making the wrong decisions in the NFL can cost players or coaches their jobs, and can cost businesses, and gambling organizations millions of dollars. They realize that, and that is why only professionals who are used to dealing with that level of pressure everyday are allowed to do this important job.

Clubs like to have powerful business men and women as club presidents or owners, those are the type of people that should be officiating the games as well. Raise the standards for the refs and touch judges and you will raise the level (and respect for) the game. People who are confident, and not scared, to make the tough calls.

The Melbourne Storm, after all the reigning champs are the champs until somebody knocks them off. Since that won’t happen this year, The Storm remain the champions and everybody knows it. I know this post will be followed by lots of garbage about the salary cap scandal from Sydney-centric fans (although the Bulldogs fans had better keep their mouths shut), but I have reviewed the Storm’s NRL dvds and I never saw any bags of money or gold or boats or cars out on the field beating Manley and Paramatta, but players. The players won those games, not bags of money. The superstars that everyone has been making a fuss over were all scouted, recruited and developed by the Storm.

As Mohammad Ali told Joe Frasier (paraphrasing) “YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT REALLY THE CHAMP UNTIL YOU BEAT ME.” The same thing applies here,The Storm are still the best team in the NRL and all of the other teams know it. They would likely have won the premiership again this year if they were allowed to play for points, but that is not to be. So who ever wins the NRL Premiership this year will know that they aren’t REALLY the champions because they didn’t have to beat the Storm to do it. They’ll smile, and pose with the trophy, but in their hearts they’ll know it is a hollow claim.

Let’s worry about who the 2011 premiers will be when all of the teams are allowed to compete again.

Better late than never! If it wasn’t for his complete incompetence The Storm would have had another Premiership for the NRL to strip from them. Instead Harrigan saved them the trouble by by doing it on the day for them!