Interesting. I think because the clubs are already guaranteed by the NRL for player payments, insurance, club insolvency, then whats the big deal? I agree with the conversation about half way up the page surrounding the penrith example. Where is this money going.

I do not blame the NRL, especially given the ongoing player salary dispute.

With a new model they could all save/use better millions upon milions of dollars going forward. Whats not to like, seriously?

They will not change these things because all told they add to the competition; none of them are ideal as such, but nothing ever is really. If all TPA’s are maxed thats an extra 10 million (approx/under) thats coming into player payments. Just several years ago people lamented the game could not harness its extra earning potential, and now we are here people are complaining.

I like this article. Good food for thought.

About TPA’s, I see a lot of complaints now. Maybe those complaints have good causes and good intentions behind them. But if we take a step back and look at the whole picture the game is better off for such payments like TPA’s than without them. If anything they need to make stricter guidelines/transparency around them, however if they are tampered with too much they will become restricted and defeat their purpose. One of the big benefits of a TPA is that a sponsor can use the player for promotional/beneficial purposes. Its not only about money – this is not free money either. The game does not need a situation where its being restricted in this area (services from players to outside the game AND in earning capacity). The whole mechanic behind TPA’s is that it allows and inflow into the game where before there were none due to a harsh and hard salary cap.

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As for a second brisbane team, it needs to come and the sooner the better.

I dont agree with origin not being taken to wider Australia. What a massive lost opportunity that would be. I would have hoped by now those premierships were already awarded to the runners up. Seems like a simple tweak.

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I like the sin-bining tweak. I have even suggested similar in the past. Mine is two fold, for undoubted flexibility while maintaining some structure for consistency.

Tim, yours could work. Mine was due to grubby players not playing in the spirit of the game. Something like 2 warnings on something equals one official warning, then 2 official warnings see’s him get a yellow and in the bin. That probably would never go any further, surely a player would pull himself into line (and don’t forget right now the coaches will grub-it-up for advantage;; which is my whole point on this – a little bit is good to overcome, shows character – but too much will restrict a teams skill and tactics, dumbing the game down, so to find a balance this would be it. And of course once a yellow card is awarded, the ref can at his discretion (and following no further official warnings then-on) send the player off with another yellow card. This would come out.

If however, the player does something heinous or like Tim, you mention in the article, it could be a direct yellow.

^^ So on that, I am all for players trying to push the limits, go hard or go home attitude, go for it, but in fairness we don’t sin bin enough players when they overstep bounds; its like the refs are afraid of it.

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See, with many things, and Tim you are on the money here with the clear attitude of what you want to allow and what you don’t want to allow ….such with many things, we need to embrace it.

We need to embrace the fact some players will do grubby, cheaty kinds of things, and they may get away with it, but they may also be pulled up for it too.

We need more sin bins. We may not call them yellow/red cards (but I think we should, our sport being a rugby has them overseas in all forms and throughout history) we should have them back.

So be it, let games be decided with 12 men on the paddock. Mix it up.

The only other thing I would do here, perhaps, it may not be required/wanted/desired, is to send off a player until the other team scores or ten minutes. Thats up for debate, but the former suggestion I made and the one in the article, I would implement immediately. We need to empower the laws of the game and the men in the middle who police them.

And as such, once good systems are in place (including the bunker) then the law can be unto itself and not be seen as outside influences from admin and the crowd, player special pleading, man handling, ect, influencing it.

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I think origin needs to be untouched in regards to players’ origination for now. When they change it should be when the international calendar ramps up. And I also think in 10 years we will almost certainly change up the laws. They come across as largely organic right now, and this is good. I dont think we need to open up origin to all and sundry. I simply think we need to promote international football better, and start proper leagues for selection and development in those countries who want to play international league.

I can’t for the life of me work out why more countries dont have at least semi-reasonable leagues. The big issue here is not every nation wanting to play origin here in australia, its every nation wanting to play in the nrl in order to be even noticed, and australian based/born/bred players all lining up in a ‘world’ cup. They should be aiming to do what rugby has done, and they need to dedicate money from events like origin and finals to international football. Profit from world cups is not going to be enough. They need to say they’ll throw 5 years of such profits (at some point in the near future + as much as only is needed) into a kitty used to develop international rugby league on top of international proceeds. So the funds would serve dual purposes, the current ones (propping up nrl clubs for example) and new international ones.

They need to essentially take their inward looking weaknesses and redirect them outwards; so the inward parts are starved and settle, and the outward parts that are undergrown may grow. Such leagues overseas need insurance and things like that. Give it 10 years of this policy, and they would come along in leaps and bounds is my best guess.

Good article.

I endorse this man!

I dont know why anyone wouldn’t care, actually. Since afterall it IS the team song.

And for reasons such as the links to tb4 is partly why I am satisfied along with the negligence. It’s precisely what I am driving at. And at this point I don’t trust any of the other clubs wholely during this period who also ran things.

MF made a good stick at it overall but the reasoning is entirely wrong, because the case was not reasoned like that, and digging deeper certainly not required.

Such a smoking gun is not required. The whole thing smokes.

I’m not introducing flaws of thought as such. The one mistake is I think MF is making apologists tendencies here, to doubt one thing to the level required is to doubt it all.

Btw dank could have spoken at any stage…

MF therefore should compel me otherwise and it was not sufficient.

We know MF has a problem with the way the case was presented and he made a decent stick at it here.

But like others have said its not the way to go about determining the verdict. No one can say what they were injected with. That’s enough for me from a distance, and when you piece together the numerous strands it makes it damning. According to the code not knowing or not wanting to know is a big no no, and we can see why.

I just think they wanted to be in the grey areas. Look at Reid’s letter – he wanted definitive proof, according to science and common sense, and in line with the principles of the wada code.

So the code is a responsible one. Essendon were not being as responsible as they could have been, at the very least maybe. There’s something in that to be busted apart – those wishing to be in the grey area because it serves their agenda.

It’s all unfortunate but it can not be explained away, and the lengths required to do so were attempted in many places, not just with the article (which alone may not even be wrong) but for the past several years.

They can’t just explain it away when it’s all so dicey and they can’t be sure

In other words there is a reason why a professional and seemingly ethical doctor in Reid would have massive objections being a part of something with rubbery policy outside best practice, and all those objections/factors not needed, as per above.

I don’t like it anymore than you, no one wants players to go down. But I fully support the decision, with little sympathy. But of course I would support them. It’s just that my support does not extend to trying to excuse everything that’s happened.

No amount of words/debate can whisk away the gross errors, danger, and inept nature of such a pursuit in a doping program that refuses systemically to take responsibility or keep records, but rather tries to remain secret and obfuscate its nature, whatever that was.

Just what of the German lab tests with raised tb4 levels? I am satisfied in the decision but would never be satisfied in an innocent verdict.

The CAS report was pretty comprehensive. Not one thing may have been overwhelmingly compelling, but all told it satisfied me. That’s all that’s needed. Plus it was a fresh case to them with new evidence as needed.

What can I say of the article is that it did not sway me. I apologise

hehe Bruce, he’s trying to get something across I see. But that something is not in the right light. There is a lower bar of evidence here needed, and the report goes into things very clearly. It was also considered that what MF is saying; that the afl took the opposite approach and concluded otherwise, whereby the afl used all that as an excuse not to seriously search deeper and convict them. They cannot be totally blamed for that.

Anything with the AFL in all this is a vipers nest. This was a fail of massive proportions all round, from dank to the teams performance, the coach losing control of the situation, the guinea pig aspect of it and then all the injuries, the shoddy record keeping to the point where Dank no longer knew who took what/when, the players shirking responsibility or turning a blind eye to it, or failing to report the usage on 30 occasions, the isolation from the club doctor and management, and, finally, the AFL trying its best to the effect of (non accusation>) to get everyone off the hook [in effect]; which is ultimately a process thing with them they’ve since worked with ASADA and WADA on. The whole concealment and secrecy thing is enough alone; these types of things are never run in professional sport with good intentions – the ruse of ‘hiding it from other clubs so they don’t do this tech like us since we’re behind already’ was just a furby we can say — in the light presented none of those excuses hold up – its all so dodgy.

If you present the 1,2,3 link case anyone can come in and say “we never took a photo of it” sure, it will fall apart. But when you take the CAS approach it all becomes clear.

Indeed some of the decision had to include the fact that a domestic body should not shirk the one higher than it, especially when its process are not up to snuff. It required a re-examining at CAS.

This just exposes a massive bungle on many levels stretching back years. The decision is right. Had they left this the AFL would have been a ticking time bomb.

Do I think they are guilty? Yes. I do think, given its nature, somewhere somehow, now or later or already happened, it would have/was illegal. I can say that with certainty. And I am, like the protocol stipulates – SATISFIED they were doing wrong.

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MF you don’t need to see a photo of the illegal activity. You just need to be “SATISFIED” it was dodgy. Lance Armstrong denied for years he was doing anything dodgy, right up until the last minute; do you think the players would even know if they were using illegal things if they had been assured it wasn’t illegal. It seems here, the players didn’t know it, but they were being very dodgy > this is not open to interpretation.

*** Going back to the more simple criminal coke thing. They were at a place with illegal substances and then the substances went missing. Thats literally enough. We can be satisfied they used it, especially when they went to great lengths to set up a system where that was possible, in a series of escalations and they didn’t know OR care if it was coke or sugar; they certainly didn’t want to tell anyone either.

***

The club deserves to be dismantled over this, which I think it effectively has. They should salt the earth almost on windy hill. At least we can be guaranteed this will likely not happen again.

34 players – that is massive.

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MF can you get back to Bruce on that answer please? It would shed some light on what your thoughts are

MF I can see the point, but agree with Mark above.

The issue you address above is not to be taken in isolation. Your claim here is invalid, I do apologize. This was a many nails thing, and you are thinking about the prior case too much where 1 thing would break the link.

They went over the above aspect in the report. You very well may be correct/up for debate on that point for yourself otherwise.

Its by no means a perfect analogy but if 1kg coke is in a house on monday and there is a party tuesday and no coke wednesday, are the party goers addicts? No one saw them take it but we know there is no coke left. One may delve and find out little jenny and tom were out back having a chat when all the coke was consumed. Maybe someone came by and half-forced/persuaded them to take a bit from a fingertip in passing, as a joke, or something “what the heck!” they say, just a little bit… of course at NO other stage under any circumstances in life would they use it. (they just were not thinking right then).

We have tests for that, but in the absence of tests, you’d have to assume everyone was taking coke. Or they knew about it. Or they encouraged it, or they had no problem with it.

Back to WADA/CAS. When all the things are weighed up in the case, we cannot say anyone is not guilty of something. The report went over this too. No one raised any alarms, no one said ‘dont do this, please!”. No one.

In this aspect – and I am jumping from criminal to civil law and back, sure, sorry btw – but in this aspect, think of it like a bunch of people sourcing bomb-making ingredients. They have them at the house and laid out on a table. “But the salt is for my chips!” he says, ‘none of those things are bomb ingredients for a bomb!” (i am using salt in a KNO3/4 thing, nitrate)

No. How convenient. He never blew anything up, but all the things are there – he’s planning something.

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Those guys at essendon were up to something, it was undocumented, kept on the quiet, never revealed, dodgy substances going round the office, with business ties, and the players treated like gunea pigs; and at any time, any point whats the bet something DID go on.

But thats not needed. Its suss as. 1 coincidence is one thing, but 50? And Dank was dodgy as, with a history of using this stuff. And it seemed to me he was conducting an experiment because he wanted to make a business out of this. Could have slipped in any old stuff at any time.

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Following from that, you can look at the words of the report, but what IF you looked at the conversations behind them? They were dealing with people with ciminal links/dodgyness who said interesting things in relation to the case when spoken to. Neither were the players here able to get several figures to come and help out.

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Finally, this is ALL tied to the fact that its UP TO the players to show they are innocent. That is covered in one section (which we all know about anyway).

So I do appreciate that we don’t have a photograph as such of use, but the inference is massive.

I have no doubt in my mind that at some point, this whole thing crossed the line, if not most of the time, then some of it. Hird sent such a text message to ‘keep it in bounds’….but he was dealing with people who didn’t give a rats what Hird said, because of their own agenda.

So I repeat, I have no doubt they are all guilty, some more than others, but guilty. And its just one big sorry issue, really.

I think it’s the way forward. It looks light on detail to some but the crux is behind the lines. This will help all levels. It’s redistributing the resources in a better way now the comp is wider scoped. You’ll get increased ease at NRL level and the pathways will be better, more flexibl and more players in the right spot at the right times. It’s just good.

Good stuff always near the mark. Well here we are and I wasn’t wrong. I remember all the arguing I did with some of my frenemies. And like I mentioned could have been more lucrative again if Smith didn’t punt himself.

This is a good deal for fans and the game, balanced and ticks all the boxes bar maybe 1 or 2. Ppl can’t expect more and it blots out the sun along with afl, those are funds sports can use best.

Oh yeah, this nigel g guy sounds like a loose her haha. Crosscoder gives quality posts.

This has been haynes dream and he is throwing aside all reason and the reporters (whom he’s known for years what they are like) have gotten to him. He’s been on the field maybe 25 seconds since he started, and he can expect several minutes over the next 10 years, if that.

Its his choice. Good luck to him. But tabloids are lame

I used to think 1.8 was the cap a year ago. Now its a bit higher. Smith I think did buy time and let’s be honest, the ch9 money is good money, who really minds if 7 paid a bit more or less. They’d have known about optus and I think they went with 9 to turn tables, 2 on 1 against news, as much as anything.

I think they’ll do a 2b deal all up.

I’m bored of news politics. It’s almost irrelevant.

Look, they don’t run these things on feelings. You can not help the fact some clubs have rocks in their heads

Of course those legacy’s are good stuff. He did much more we don’t see behind the scenes we’ll be thankful for in due time. Also the commission, G Samuel and others helped with the deal and more still to go. People in those areas are cool under pressure. Smith is meant to have told someone the deal will be commensurate with the afl one. At the end of day digital sorted and I doubt anyone is too disappointed with the CEO in truth

Smith is a genius. He knew 4 yrs max for him. I don’t think he is disappointed. I doubt anything has changed since my original piece on potential rights written here on the roar. They played for all outcomes. Picture this, and the AFR says as much. Fox will get more than likely Saturday back and it would goto 10. Fox simulcast extra 3 games. They have doubled content, fox with all 8 games and potential for 9th, and improved slots, everyone bar fox who lose Mondays but gain 3 plus finals simulcast Expect around double money. Digital rights and splitting fta and pay was needed to get proper bargaining. They had to bust up the Telstra deal and naming rights. Now time to do it. Negotiations are different to discussions but a deal was always moving bar for a few weeks. 9 was always talking to ten and even in center of fight they were investigating. Streaming could go either way, they are open universal. This kind of leverage to put game first and 100% of people first is what I also called for separately. Trust me smith was the goods.

Thanks for a good article but you will miss him. Though the next CEO has been shown the standard to beat

Tim you couldn’t be more wrong. I’m surprised to see this even from you

Ironically the gaffe is this article.

Im with CC on this.

Many should pay more respect to him. Dont worry, he’s not expendable by any means but this is part and parcel of such jobs and his own trajectory, or any ceo. 1 yr to learn, 1 to make policy changes and 1 to enforce them. With the ch9 tv deal he definitely did enforce the one many are so pre-ocupied with.

He was here to change mindsets much like wayne jackson was in the afl. Look at the mirror or it, and now the news agenda runs the same mantra, that two he hired, in afl it was vlad and another, should be the successor. News suffers from a lack of imagination, if anything. Yet they never allowed the CEO to have a clean, fair run. This makes the CEO’s performance of ever higher regard.

In a smh article masters said a close friend was confided that the entire tv deal was set to be a doozy. As for the rest of it, I see nothing by good things. The visual things many want will come in time. As to his function as ceo and whenever he spoke about the game, he did it very well.

Anyone who tells you differently does not know what they are talking about. There exists no magic wand – except to say that YOU are the wand essentially.

i dont i think its bs. should be in house nrl hall of fame and all inclusive.

cool, great stuff. came checking for sandor banality. thankfully found something more worthy. I think they need a hall of fame, so they can carefully and fully in the light of day contrast stats and things like that. I do not think the immortals thing, which is a separate thing altogether from the league, is worthy in this day and age.

People can then decide in debate who is an immortal, its entirely subjective. But a hall of fame is a much better thing. There are way more things with degrees of separation available within that framework.

well said CC. Someone said above its going to be worse with more camera angles, ect. ha. The bunker will allow them to pick and choose which angles, and watch footage concurrently at any angle they like.

This bunker system will improve on the process. And the refs do a pretty good job overall in any case. They have trimmed down the number of video refs required. The improvements are all across the board. This is a great step forward.

This article was in jest, surely. Chadly said it best. Let it go. There is no alternative that is as good as golden point. And for the record, I am fine with golden point. I can’t understand why Bennett keeps slagging it off. Though to be fair, he both tried to and avoid having an affect on the conversation. His press conference was a tricky one. The media jumped on it.

He both wanted this outcry to come and not I reckon. I am a bronco’s supporter.

Some of you must be dead set kidding. Forget about the nuances and focus on the trends. When clubs moved to ANZ their crowds essentially doubled. They were getting sub 10k some of these teams, and now they get closer to 20, often more and more often. Brisbane did the same upon moving/returning to suncorp/lang park. Things like scheduling and the like play a part, but they are irrelevant for this discussion, and probably have no bearing given that they can be altered.

But just look at some of the grounds clubs play at right now. Some of the worst would be shark park, brookvale, penrith and jubilee oval.

The whole thing about the SFS is a bit null and void. It will be getting light rail. Whether you like it or not that area is slated as an entertainment precinct. Yes, personally I figured in the perfect world they could gut the SFS and put 2 rings or seat all the way around it, but its not as simple as that, and it would be a 2nd option. It needs a new stadium, a new site almost, new dimensions, a new foundation.

I am sure there will be – just like there is on here – those who will want to throw spanners into the works; but if people think crowds will not increase in time, they would be thinking with yesterday glasses and not tommorow-glasses.

Surveys will not tell you this. But the number 1 reason why people do not attend sport in sydney (NRL especially) is because of the facilities. Its normalization. All the talk of ticket prices and food prices must be weighed up against desire (not sporting popularity). The facilities are a major part of that. You need to drop the *big* pieces into place first. Its /almost/ if you built it they will come. But for crying out loud they need something worth while to goto first.

No….its not ideal and its a skeleton plan in some respects, but the need has been identified and money looked at and a way forged to make it happen.

There’s ANZ and Alliance. Two big stones you can’t just brush aside. Will be better for all this. There is parramatta which everyone can thankfully universally agree upon, and there is meant to be one new stadium (up to 40k) built sometime in the future.

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My expectation is that crowds will go past a 20k average before long, about a decade (for it to all bed in). There is a large concerted effort to make this happen. I just think that too often we think of things in past terms, instead of considering how it will be.

Its not a big thing. Within 20 years (hence my future glasses thing) the average may even be 30k.

At the end of the day its not about averages as much as we may like to think it is. Its about the city having stadia that can compete with major events and service existing competitions.

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The whole thing, no, it may not be ideal, but its more than enough of a step in the right direction. For comparisons sake, imagine Suncorp where the SFS is right now. A lot more attractive to attend. Im not buying into the naysayers on this. Once people see it and experience it, sure its not smack bang on a major train line, but they will see the seat and probably say “I definitely would want to sit there”.

And you know what, as decisions come up in your life, for a big game, whatnot, you will probably (on average/compared to a suburban ground) take *up* that choice more often than not when compared to the frequency you used to decide on.

People make mention of the EPL and AFL – wake up, those stadia are modern, very capable arenas. They are not shark part, brookvale, penrith ect. As I said – the whole scheme is dropping the big pieces into place. It will make waves.

People continually compare themselves to AFL – but RL people just want to play and watch RL – we don’t care what AFL is doing really, except when it intersects

Im with CC on this, the Roy masters article has been taken out of context here for purposes other than the original story.

There’s still more deal to come. Roy didn’t spin this, he chose to look at one angle, and frankly I think it has a giant bearing on the outcome; and oddly some people, namely non RL people, on here are thinking its got to be exactly like the AFL contract. Well, clearly the two halves are not alike, so no deal should be structured exactly alike.

Of course C7 would pump up advertising potency – because they just wrote down a stack load and have a lot of debt. They want to bring about market confidence. These people use their media time effectively. He doesn’t say stuff to the media every day.

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You know what, CC has the right of it and I am not just saying that. Too many jump to conclusions. They did some 40+ interactions (presentations, ect, back and forth) on this very issue with fox, I do not think they arrived here lightly.

Whats more, cyngell, like many others, including on here have come out and said (myself included) any deal with fox will be for a very sizable amount of money.

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But welcome to a game that more than one network would actually like to broadcast. Rugby league.

bingo, i almost certainly think. my take on it was spite – that RM offered afl more out of spite, fully knowing he’ have to offer nrl more now