Politis slams “jealous” critics

[newtiger]

@gallagher We need business people like Johnson on the board of WT.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

AP Eagers is a smart company with a great CEO. They're doing a fair bit of takeover activity and Uncle Nick's wealth has swelled as a result.

I dare say that if Nick passes, I expect there will be a sizable endowment fund for the Roosters. Nick could potentially set up a fund that would cover them in perpetuity.

Just hopefully Harry T has one lined up for the Tigers!!

Read somewhere awhile ago that he has organised ongoing support for the Rorters well into the future.

No such thing planned by Harry I would think. Harry I would imagine he is still browned off over the BLC.

I heard Harry T and Jaycars owner G Johnson are both being courted to re-enter as sponsorship partners in some capacity. Both are WT supporters ..... so you never know there’s smoke so there may be fire!

Man, that’s got to be the most exaggerate, over used phrase in the history of the forum.

 

[gallagher]

@gallagher We need business people like Johnson on the board of WT.

Absolutely. Is rhe Brydens owner a tigers fan too?

 

[Tiger_Steve]

@momo_amp_medo
What if the 'gifts' are not dollars and cents but happy meals or a new scooter? Well organised gifts would be hard to trace and even harder to attribute as a payment in kind.

Some folks in here mentioned Singo on the Matty Johns Podcast, which I ended up watching this evening on Kayo. It is indeed interesting how he makes several mentions of Politis, at the suggestion of Johns, and how "Easts work in gifts".

He said that's the way Newtown started their recruitment driving when he joined in the 80s, and that gifts aren't traceable, or you could make them traceable and tax deductible for yourself, so either way it's a win. Singo says to Johns "mate, I could offer you a gift right now, for doing nothing, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, it's not illegal".

Johns says "so what about Nick Politis?"

Singo says something along the lines of "oh, he was green back then, but he was interested in the game and he quickly learned that it was a terrific game to watch and be involved in, and he wanted to be more involved. You'll remember he was one of the first to put his name on jerseys, with City Ford. Him and John Quayle are tight - one being good with money, one being a good man-manager, so Easts make things happen. Nick used to put roadblocks in my path when we worked together, rules and such, and I'd have to find a way to get around them, find the loophole, which is what he does now with Easts and the salary cap. If Easts want a player nowadays, it happens."


So what assumptions, hypothesis or articulations do you make after watching the podcast?

I don't follow? Interesting opinions of an old league head, and Singo knows/knew a lot of big hitters in Australia.

Just genuinely interested in what opinions you formed about today’s game after taking in the podcast. Eg: for me it causes concern that there seems to be so much known underhanded activity that goes relatively unchecked

 

[supercoach]

When a club offers a kid a contract to play junior rep stuff I guess it has no bearing on the salary cap and they can pay as much as they want.

So a team like Easts can pay these kids a small fortune and than drop the money back when they hit grade to be cap compliant.

They seem to have no trouble attracting both the elite senior players and the elite junior players. I would love them to be exposed but I doubt that will ever happen...the Teflon club

 

[jirskyr]

@jirskyr Where and how do we watch this interview?

Kayo Sports I watched it - Matty Johns podcast is posted under NRL. Also you can just look up "Matty Johns Podcast" on the net and listen to it. But Singo sat at a desk with Matty and filmed it too.

 

[jirskyr]

@momo_amp_medo
What if the 'gifts' are not dollars and cents but happy meals or a new scooter? Well organised gifts would be hard to trace and even harder to attribute as a payment in kind.

Some folks in here mentioned Singo on the Matty Johns Podcast, which I ended up watching this evening on Kayo. It is indeed interesting how he makes several mentions of Politis, at the suggestion of Johns, and how "Easts work in gifts".

He said that's the way Newtown started their recruitment driving when he joined in the 80s, and that gifts aren't traceable, or you could make them traceable and tax deductible for yourself, so either way it's a win. Singo says to Johns "mate, I could offer you a gift right now, for doing nothing, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, it's not illegal".

Johns says "so what about Nick Politis?"

Singo says something along the lines of "oh, he was green back then, but he was interested in the game and he quickly learned that it was a terrific game to watch and be involved in, and he wanted to be more involved. You'll remember he was one of the first to put his name on jerseys, with City Ford. Him and John Quayle are tight - one being good with money, one being a good man-manager, so Easts make things happen. Nick used to put roadblocks in my path when we worked together, rules and such, and I'd have to find a way to get around them, find the loophole, which is what he does now with Easts and the salary cap. If Easts want a player nowadays, it happens."


So what assumptions, hypothesis or articulations do you make after watching the podcast?

I don't follow? Interesting opinions of an old league head, and Singo knows/knew a lot of big hitters in Australia.


Just genuinely interested in what opinions you formed about today’s game after taking in the podcast. Eg: for me it causes concern that there seems to be so much known underhanded activity that goes relatively unchecked

Ah no particular opinion post-podcast, to be honest. At least, not in terms of modern-day football. Singo was balls-deep in football operations 40 years ago but not any more, and he is talking of a past long-gone.

In fact Matty Johns raised a number of Singo's mates and acquaintances for discussion and most of them are dead now, so it's talk of an old time.

Singo appeared to be stating what he thought was fact - actually the comments were quite brief and non-sensationalist, as if it was common knowledge - Nick Politis has figured out a way around the rules. And Singo said he was surprised that other clubs hadn't yet figured out a way to "copy Easts".

In terms of underhanded and unchecked activity - gosh, that's the world. Don't look too far into politics or business if it concerns you, because it's rife.

 

[momo_amp_medo]

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:


Not too bad .... but one good magician-comedian (Phil -trust me-Cass) ......the rest you wouldn’t feed!

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:


Not too bad .... but one good magician-comedian (Phil -trust me-Cass) ......the rest you wouldn’t feed!

For those interested I’ll just clarify further regarding my comment re. Comedy Cruise.
It’s a fun three days of wall to wall comedy on a cruise to nowhere. You don’t get to find out who the comedians are however couple of headline acts are always good . On this one the host comedian David Smiedt, and headliners Phill Cass (used to be a regular on Hey Hey) and Peter Rowstham (well known Ozzie comedian) and American AshFils-Aime were all very good and Jacques Barrett and Brett Blake Just above average. They have an early PG show and late and midnight R rated shows.
These cruises are usually well priced (look for regular special deals available via Cruise1st, Groupon, Scoopon websites) and for what you get they are worth it particularly if you are in a fun group travelling together.
So you can discard my earlier comment written in a hurry under influence if that crap game result last night.
Sorry for getting off the topic but thought some of you might be interested.

 

[Blacknwhite]

When a club offers a kid a contract to play junior rep stuff I guess it has no bearing on the salary cap and they can pay as much as they want.

So a team like Easts can pay these kids a small fortune and than drop the money back when they hit grade to be cap compliant.

They seem to have no trouble attracting both the elite senior players and the elite junior players. I would love them to be exposed but I doubt that will ever happen...the Teflon club

If the club was to be really serious, and take on the cap recruiting juniors, it could be done.

Buy some land, get Meriton to develop small blocks of units, 50-100. Use a similar strategy to Politis and the Sharks, using a property portfolio to back the club financially. Pay Meriton a premium, the extras funelled into sponsorships to NRL players, and keep him off sponsorships to the club.

As kids are brought into the system, set them up in the units, at a price where its still cap compliant, though put foxtel and NBN pro bono, even bulk deliver food to the one building taking care of both dietary needs of players and taking pressure off their wallets. Makes it easy to run a shuttle bus to training, put minders in the building to make sure they arent getting out of hand... has alot of upside across the board.

Schools and districts we are apart of. Make our development charged under our football operations, run clinics for coaching so to have a core philosophy and work ethic so we can more easily identify players who should excell as they move into our West Tigers system as adults. Flex the large juniors base/schools under our umbrella to put pressure on suppliers, balls, jersey makers etc. to help them broker better deals/subsidise some of it (sounds expensive, though Wests Ashfield is already doing alot of this anyway). Put money into our sports science dept and have them educate coaches across the board, have em work on the kids if they break...

Junior managers.... get an accredited manager on board, hell even get someone accredited, as most of these kids wont have managers. Guide them into the in house management, and give kids who do the most perks, lower % fees and what not. For a few grand we would see alot jump ship, and then we would have insight into other clubs showing interest into our up and coming players. We dont need a shill giving them bad advice in our favour, but havent we all had enough of player managers running the show. Our guy being the only one who can get his players food deliveries would save them 5k a yr at least, thats a hell of a carrot.

Sounds rediculous I know, but we arent going to lure a Cronk, Tedesco, Taumalolo away until we right the ship. Sure we will lose some players we invest in, but that is inevitable. What we can do though is create an environment where its stupid not to come here and be developed, nurture a positive atmosphere and culture from the grass roots.

We can find the kids... we always have. What we need to do Is compete at the utmost highest level to indoctrinate them, and change the perception of our professionalism, before the hacks in our NRL squad have a chance to ifect them with negativity.

 

[the_third]

@Blacknwhite now there’s a plan. Best of all we don’t need that many apartments, Harry could just change his rental/sales ratio per block and he would probably still come out in front.

 

[crazycat]

While we always say "how on earth are roosters under the cap"... I have no idea.

We have to admit. We looked at the bulldogs and went, we will take Reynolds and Mbye. (in fairness the Reynolds decision was when we had no Benji and were on a LONG Rebuild. It made some sense but Maloney and/or Cronk would have been better going a 1 mil option....which may not have happened).

The roosters picked up Brett Morris cheap. I was honestly thinking why not go one or both Morris's. Instead we went Mbye, WHY!

Our recruitment strategy at the moment seems stuck on Average. Cleary taught me a hard rugby league lesson, recruit average and it is damn hard to upgrade them to good.

 

[Blacknwhite]

@Blacknwhite now there’s a plan. Best of all we don’t need that many apartments, Harry could just change his rental/sales ratio per block and he would probably still come out in front.

I wouldnt make Harry build the block of units out of his own pocket... pay him to build them, give him a few units to keep and rent, and see if we could broker a deal where the rental return is funnelled back into sponsorships for the $2m equity we gifted.

Wets Ashfield spent $20m+ iirc building their carpark, they have the finances to fund the build, will get a fair chunk back selling a portion of the units, and gain equity in the units they keep for player housing, and an ongoing income minimal as it may be from the players rent... it isnt rocket science.

I would go as far to say depending what they sold, they could walk away even, have their units for player lodgings, and the minimal rent they charge would cover the food, internet, foxtel and other perks.

 

[the_third]

@Blacknwhite fair point, but then Harry can’t gift it to the players :wink:

 

[happy_tiger]

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:


Not too bad .... but one good magician-comedian (Phil -trust me-Cass) ......the rest you wouldn’t feed!

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:

Hope you are having a great comedy cruise :clown_face: /holiday :fa-smile-o:


Not too bad .... but one good magician-comedian (Phil -trust me-Cass) ......the rest you wouldn’t feed!


For those interested I’ll just clarify further regarding my comment re. Comedy Cruise.
It’s a fun three days of wall to wall comedy on a cruise to nowhere. You don’t get to find out who the comedians are however couple of headline acts are always good . On this one the host comedian David Smiedt, and headliners Phill Cass (used to be a regular on Hey Hey) and Peter Rowstham (well known Ozzie comedian) and American AshFils-Aime were all very good and Jacques Barrett and Brett Blake Just above average. They have an early PG show and late and midnight R rated shows.
These cruises are usually well priced (look for regular special deals available via Cruise1st, Groupon, Scoopon websites) and for what you get they are worth it particularly if you are in a fun group travelling together.
So you can discard my earlier comment written in a hurry under influence if that crap game result last night.
Sorry for getting off the topic but thought some of you might be interested.

Phil Cass was a pretty good rugby league player .....played A Grade for Souths ....had a pretty handy centre feeding him .....one Mal Meninga

 

[Swordy]

Can be fixed tomorrow. Players get rated by NRL using a points system.

You can pay them whatever you want, but they have a point value and each team has a points limit of 1000.

"Sorry Teddy, we can pay you 3mil a year of course, but we only have points space of 30, and you are rated at 80 points."

That would soon sort the crap about money. But you know it won't happen. RLPA will see it as a way of restricting player rights and will sooky la la. You know who runs the game anyway. Thugs, grubs and germs pretending to be upstanding citizens.


I have been beating this drum for years. If we can’t have a transfer system and a draft system due restraint of trade..we must have a point system

Discussed many times including a week or two ago - it won't work.

Bet your bottom dollar that arbitrary points allocation to players would be challenged in court - it's a potential restraint in trade just like anything else.

Already the amount of complete nonsense about the NRL getting referees to influence outcomes, literally every bad call nowadays and some muppet says "oh the NRL clearly wants TEAM X to win".

Imagine the furore over NRL-decided player ratings!

Points systems are essentially fantasy football - rate a player based on certain criteria that somebody deems to be worth something. What about Origin footballers vs Kangaroos? Tackle busts vs line breaks? Tries vs goals?

If you say that Tedesco is worth 80 points, that limits his capacity to earn, literally. It may points-price him out and he'd have no options, he wouldn't be able to take a pay cut if he decided that was worthwhile.

And what about changes in player form over a season, or over the course of their contract? How can you plan for the future adequately if you sign Kalyn Ponga to a 4-year deal starting at 30 points and at the end he is worth 100 points?

And with no control on the actual money, just watch Broncos and Roosters sign all the best players in each points bracket.

@jirskyr I disagree. It’s no more a restraint of trade any more than the current salary cap. In fact, a players ability to earn is better because there is no monetary restriction on earnings whatsoever.
You could certainly argue the points allocation, but not on the basis of money. How they are allocated would be difficult, I certainly concede that, but they would be far more consistent and morally reliable than the current money only system which is common knowledge its being cheated.
The only other alternative which makes it difficult, but not impossible, is to publish salaries and connect them to the ATO…which will never happen.

 

[Cultured_Bogan]

Can be fixed tomorrow. Players get rated by NRL using a points system.

You can pay them whatever you want, but they have a point value and each team has a points limit of 1000.

"Sorry Teddy, we can pay you 3mil a year of course, but we only have points space of 30, and you are rated at 80 points."

That would soon sort the crap about money. But you know it won't happen. RLPA will see it as a way of restricting player rights and will sooky la la. You know who runs the game anyway. Thugs, grubs and germs pretending to be upstanding citizens.


I have been beating this drum for years. If we can’t have a transfer system and a draft system due restraint of trade..we must have a point system

Discussed many times including a week or two ago - it won't work.

Bet your bottom dollar that arbitrary points allocation to players would be challenged in court - it's a potential restraint in trade just like anything else.

Already the amount of complete nonsense about the NRL getting referees to influence outcomes, literally every bad call nowadays and some muppet says "oh the NRL clearly wants TEAM X to win".

Imagine the furore over NRL-decided player ratings!

Points systems are essentially fantasy football - rate a player based on certain criteria that somebody deems to be worth something. What about Origin footballers vs Kangaroos? Tackle busts vs line breaks? Tries vs goals?

If you say that Tedesco is worth 80 points, that limits his capacity to earn, literally. It may points-price him out and he'd have no options, he wouldn't be able to take a pay cut if he decided that was worthwhile.

And what about changes in player form over a season, or over the course of their contract? How can you plan for the future adequately if you sign Kalyn Ponga to a 4-year deal starting at 30 points and at the end he is worth 100 points?

And with no control on the actual money, just watch Broncos and Roosters sign all the best players in each points bracket.

@jirskyr I disagree. It’s no more a restraint of trade any more than the current salary cap. In fact, a players ability to earn is better because there is no monetary restriction on earnings whatsoever.
You could certainly argue the points allocation, but not on the basis of money. How they are allocated would be difficult, I certainly concede that, but they would be far more consistent and morally reliable than the current money only system which is common knowledge its being cheated.
The only other alternative which makes it difficult, but not impossible, is to publish salaries and connect them to the ATO…which will never happen.

Unless the net total points of all players available in the league equal or are less than the salary cap points available it is a restraint of trade.

Say a talented young player coming through grades starts off a with small points value and then has a break out year or two under contract, gets re-rated for his next contract at much higher value, and all clubs have expended their cap allocations for the period when his next contract is up for negotiation, he gets run out of the game.

Point allocation to players would be a totally arbitrary system because workhorses and stat padders would go for astronomical values and could also be run out of the game when every team has and needs those types of players.

 

[jirskyr]

The roosters picked up Brett Morris cheap. I was honestly thinking why not go one or both Morris’s. Instead we went Mbye, WHY!

Different players and different needs. We don't needly wiley old finishers on the wing at the moment. Josh Morris at centre might have been ok.

Tigers need to boost speed and power, we've got enough "solid and respectable" footballers, which is what gets us 9th all the time.

 

[jirskyr]

It’s no more a restraint of trade any more than the current salary cap. In fact, a players ability to earn is better because there is no monetary restriction on earnings whatsoever.

The difference is that salary cap is a restraint on club spending. As a player you can personally earn whatever you can negotiate wherever the club is.

But if you apply points directly to a player, that's the restraint. You are bound by your points. If you over-points someone, clubs won't pay for them, they are too "expensive". If NRL says "Benji Marshall is experienced and has a storied rep career", he could potentially be too expensive for anyone to fit into their points cap. How do you measure the "downslide" of a late career? How could Benji agree to very modest terms to play for the club he loves?

Totally agree with you on publishing salaries. NRL should, if legally acceptable, make that the requirement of registration. But bet your bottom dollar that RLPA fights that to their last breath.

 

[jirskyr]

Point allocation to players would be a totally arbitrary system because workhorses and stat padders would go for astronomical values and could also be run out of the game when every team has and needs those types of players.

Precisely, it's the arbitrary nature of a points system. Who decides whether tackles or points or career or rep footy or speed or power are worth? You can't have that.

 

[happy_tiger]

Its funny ,The John Singleton interview comes out and the following day Politis comes out and defends himself .....never thought to do it before

Reeks of guilt ....