NRL Partially To Blame

[Chris]

I may be wrong in thinking this way but I cant help but feel the NRL are partially to blame for the fiasco that is going on now with how the Salary Cap is set up.

For years I've been saying that the Salary Cap should work in favour of clubs who nurture and develop their own juniors. The "Big 4" are a classic example of that. We brought them through our junior system and developed them into where they are today. I feel that any club who does this should be rewarded and be allowed to pay their juniors any amount of dollars they can afford without it affecting their salary cap.

In saying that, I think the Salary cap should be reduced to encourage clubs to develop their own juniors and set up nurseries in other areas like country NSW and QLD to not only stock pile their recruits but to quite simple, grow the game.

If this was in place, we should have the right to offer these players what we think they are worth and what we can afford and not by what the Salary Cap dictates. We were the ones who did all the work with them and I think it's highly unfair that other clubs can sweep in and reep the rewards from what we have done.

I think that if the Salary Cap was set up like this, we'd have all 4 players signed by now without having them holding us to ransom.

Just my thoughts…..

 

[barra]

It would favour us to have such a system - and that's exactly why there is objection to it because other clubs don't have the same size 'nurseries' and are therefore, it is said, are at a disadvantage.

But never a mention about the inequalities of the various clubs' abilities to attract TPAs!!

I'd like to see higher dispensation for long-serving players too.

There are several aspects of the salary cap and player movements that need a damn good overhaul!

 

[newtiger]

Even if a club got some compensation for other clubs signing a clubs junior players.
Even if is just a transfer of cap money to the development club, say Parra would have to count Moses salary in the cap but also be penalised a further $100k of cap money and the WT he an extra $100k in their cap.

 

[gallagher]

Wouldnt any juniour compensation or cap relief only strenghten the Broncos more?

 

[TYGA]

I may be wrong in thinking this way but I cant help but feel the NRL are partially to blame for the fiasco that is going on now with how the Salary Cap is set up.

For years I've been saying that the Salary Cap should work in favour of clubs who nurture and develop their own juniors. The "Big 4" are a classic example of that. We brought them through our junior system and developed them into where they are today. I feel that any club who does this should be rewarded and be allowed to pay their juniors any amount of dollars they can afford without it affecting their salary cap.

In saying that, I think the Salary cap should be reduced to encourage clubs to develop their own juniors and set up nurseries in other areas like country NSW and QLD to not only stock pile their recruits but to quite simple, grow the game.

If this was in place, we should have the right to offer these players what we think they are worth and what we can afford and not by what the Salary Cap dictates. We were the ones who did all the work with them and I think it's highly unfair that other clubs can sweep in and reep the rewards from what we have done.

I think that if the Salary Cap was set up like this, we'd have all 4 players signed by now without having them holding us to ransom.

Just my thoughts…..

NRL give no advantage to clubs for developing players which is a joke.
That said salary cap is not the reason we are losing these players as we have offered overs for all players. Badly managed contracts by management all coming off at the same time. You don't let star players hit the market you get in early and upgrade them to entice them to extend before this point.

We need to rebuild and make proper management moving forward to stop this nonsense you can trace it all back to Grant Mayer if you look closely.

 

[Bob]

I think simply a subsidy to the player for every year he has been with a team.(Paid by the NRL outside the cap) It would stop the circus! A player would need to way up the options if he had 4 years of service with a team to start again with a new side.
Development clubs would benefit as they usually sign the players first professional contract so a player would be less inclined to move for valid reasons.
Players wouldn't move codes to give up the Bonus unless the money was ridiculous.
Power clubs could still entice elite players with large TPA's.
RLPA would be happy because everyone could earn money and more money would be thrown into development as well bringing back club loyalty, which engages fans more, therefore memberships would go up!!

 

[jirskyr]

It's an argument in all directions. Of course all clubs with big junior nurseries want to protect and be rewarded for that, they will say they are nuturing the future of the game (and helping themselves along the way). Clubs without this junior capacity, or clubs that have strong resources for TPAs will argue they are working within the rules and flexing their business muscle / benefactors.

Because whilst TPAs might not be fairly distributed at this time, the NRL should also not be preventing private league enthusiasts for investing in the game. Is there not already a borderline case for restraint of trade if you try and stop players cashing in on their personal brand? If it's a non-sponsor payment (which TPA is by definition) and clubs are technically not supposed to guarantee this (though of course they do everything they can to make it happen), how can the NRL legally intervene?

I think this has been hashed out over a long time and there are two arguments:

1) That the cap works, the results have been quite even for some time, and it is unrealistic to expect all clubs get equal chance at everything all the time. Even if the NRL strictly controlled what clubs could and could not do, clubs would always be looking for an edge or a loophole.

2) That the cap works to an extent but it should be removed, in order to strengthen the game such that the weak clubs are absorbed / relocated and the remaining/new clubs have the ability to directly compete with one another. Tough one because although it's true 9 clubs in Sydney is not ideal, this is not the US with very many highly-populated cities. You can allow Sydney clubs to perish but obviously so much of the money driving the game comes from Sydney and it's size/wealth/success/prominence.

So the alternative appears to be centralised NRL management of juniors including a draft. NRL takes over all junior development pathways, you lose some of the culture / identification of kids with certain clubs, you risk increasing the player mentality that it's "just a job, this is just a club", but you gain an even distribution of young talent and you eliminate the arguments over the maintenance and poaching within junior nurseries. TPAs become a little less relevant when young kids are drafted to clubs, you can only get poaching of more established footballers, and these players are expensive and therefore harder to stuff under a salary cap, even with more access to lucrative TPAs.

Lastly, does the NRL not now set a market value on all players, to prevent ridiculous salaries (as reported for Darren Lockyer) with massive TPAs?

 

[newtiger]

Wouldnt any juniour compensation or cap relief only strenghten the Broncos more?

Yes it would strengthen the Broncos but it would also help us.
The NRL seriously needs to look at a second NRL team in Brisbane to minimise the power of the Broncos.

 

[supercoach]

I may be wrong in thinking this way but I cant help but feel the NRL are partially to blame for the fiasco that is going on now with how the Salary Cap is set up.

For years I've been saying that the Salary Cap should work in favour of clubs who nurture and develop their own juniors. The "Big 4" are a classic example of that. We brought them through our junior system and developed them into where they are today. I feel that any club who does this should be rewarded and be allowed to pay their juniors any amount of dollars they can afford without it affecting their salary cap.

In saying that, I think the Salary cap should be reduced to encourage clubs to develop their own juniors and set up nurseries in other areas like country NSW and QLD to not only stock pile their recruits but to quite simple, grow the game.

If this was in place, we should have the right to offer these players what we think they are worth and what we can afford and not by what the Salary Cap dictates. We were the ones who did all the work with them and I think it's highly unfair that other clubs can sweep in and reep the rewards from what we have done.

I think that if the Salary Cap was set up like this, we'd have all 4 players signed by now without having them holding us to ransom.

Just my thoughts…..

Been my beef for years, there is no reward for pouring money into your juniors when you can sit back and let a club do the hard slog and develop talent and than have them snatched by another club. There should be some serious rewards for any club who brings a junior through to NRL standard and there should be some serious penalties for club who snatch other clubs juniors.

Also the cap itself was introduced to limit the gap between the haves and the have nots, but it has had the reverse effect. The richer clubs have a full cap and endless TPA's at their disposal where clubs like ours only have the cap and a handful of TPA's, so we can never compete on a level playing field.

I suppose we can blame one X Balmain player in Dennis Tutty for most of these problems, many years ago we had a transfer fee in place, where clubs had to pay the other club a transfer fee as compensation, like in Football. Anyway Tutty took the League to court and ,had the system abolished. Really why don't we get compensation for all the time and money invested in these kids

 

[TYGA]

We won't have to worry next year our team will be lucky to have Nofa, Sue, Ava, Liddell as the only juniors in first grade. Everyone else will be bought not bred.

 

[bigsiro]

The salary cap is completely corrupted. Not just by the teams, but by the NRL itself, e.g. the Titans get more cash injections and dispensations from the NRL to ensure they are competitive.
It is not an even competition. Never will be.
But this is not news.
We could equally exploit the TPA sham like Roosters and Broncos but we just don't.