Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

[Guest]

A Malcolm Knox article in SMH about salary cap and how entrenched the inequalities of the NRL are (and why no one wants to change this).

The more agitated people are, the less the fundamentals change. When everyone seems angry, the underlying order – who’s on top, who’s underneath – entrenches itself. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. It was a Frenchman, Alphonse Karr, who coined the phrase in 1862, and, rugby league being to us what philosophy is to the French, it’s true of the NRL in 2021.

The more the game enters uncharted new bubbles, the more deeply it reinforces the status quo. The 2021 season is about to end with virtually the same top, middle and bottom groupings as last year. And, with some small variations, the year before, and the year before that. Fourteen of the 16 NRL clubs are stuck in Groundhog Year.

In the modern game, every gut feeling has to stand up to statistical analysis. Is it actually true?

The NRL is clearly segmented into three divisions, which were quite predictable from the outset given the uneven spread of talent. Some clubs can afford to play representative stars off the bench, in positions where other clubs select reserve-graders. Whether the better clubs have poached or developed their talent matters little; the roster differences are vast. The top six at the outset of 2021 were Melbourne, Penrith, the Roosters, Parramatta, South Sydney and Canberra. The bottom five were Canterbury, Brisbane, North Queensland, Manly and the Wests Tigers. The inconsistent swill bogged in the middle were Newcastle, St George Illawarra, Cronulla, the Gold Coast and the Warriors.

What’s the point?
What’s the point?CREDIT:SIMON LETCH
There have been just two divisional changes this season: Manly (assuming Tom Trbojevic is playing) have risen from third division to first, while Canberra have slipped from first to second. Trbojevic has saved not only the Sea Eagles; he has saved the entire league from the embarrassment of a top-to-bottom repeat set.

For a lockdown project, I broke down the 172 matches played up to this weekend’s round into divisional contests. Forty-eight matches were within the divisions. Of the remaining 124 matches, 91 ran completely as predicted: three in four matches were won by the team in the higher division. Of the 33 that went against the flow, nine featured Trbojevic. Take him out, and five out of six NRL games produced the same result they would have produced in the previous two years.

The Origin period should upset this kind of runaway apple cart. To a degree, it did, with the Tigers beating the Origin-gutted Panthers. But even during that mid-year flux, of 29 matches played between teams from different divisions, 20 were won by this year’s (ie, last year’s, and the year before’s) higher team.

Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.
Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.CREDIT:GETTY
Advertisement

Such results might be just what you’d expect at the top and bottom, but they are similarly repetitive for the water-treading middle teams. The Knights, the Sharks, the Warriors, the Titans and the Dragons are all having virtually the same season they had last year and the year before. Their fans must be dying from déjà vu all over again.

Why should this be worthy of commentary? The strong dominate the weak, duh. Better clubs win more matches. Isn’t this the way of the world, the entrenched interests using a crisis to dig themselves in?

Rugby league is meant to have a salary cap that stops this being the way of the NRL world. The salary cap, aside from saving clubs from spending themselves into insolvency, is supposed to offer the game’s supporters a version of hope: a competition that constantly recirculates its winners and losers, generating new leaders, a game in which everybody can start the season feeling they have a chance. Otherwise, you get the dreaded social Darwinism of the European football leagues.

Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.
Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.CREDIT:AP
The evidence is clear, to everyone except the governing body, that the salary cap is a failed model. When Canterbury or Brisbane or the Tigers have to pay second-rate spine players first-rate money to convince them to serve under their coaches, while clubs led by Craig Bellamy or Trent Robinson or Ivan Cleary can get away with securing quality individuals for “unders” - a beautiful euphemism for market manipulation - then the economic measurement of player value is no longer valid. Lower clubs overspend out of desperation and, to confirm the injustice, those clubs are usually the ones who get caught breaching their salary cap. For what, their fans ask – for those players?

The NRL has proposed a salary cap review, but its stomach to take on vested interests has been weakened by the challenges of COVID. Never waste a crisis, say those in prime position. The ruling junta are pretty happy to leave things the way they are, and if the Roosters hadn’t suffered the misfortune of an injury crisis, they would be even happier.

I feel like I’ve made this argument before (plus c’est la meme chose). Plenty of other frustrated observers have. Measuring rugby league players by what they are paid might have been valid if the difference was between a $60,000 contract and a $150,000 one. But in a world where they are certainly happier to take $500,000 and a premiership than $700,000 and a wooden spoon, the rugby league salary is not only an obsolete way to assess value, it’s a sure formula for prolonging the existing order. Alternatives are available – fantasy competitions use non-financial values every week – but few in the NRL are interested in developing them. Why upset the old men’s way of doing business when it is those old men who speak in support of every NRL decision? You scratch my back …

RELATED ARTICLE
Nathan Cleary will need to alter his kicking game under the rule change.
Exclusive
NRL 2021
The rule change set to transform the NRL kicking game forever
Perhaps the NRL has faith that we will be distracted by the dazzle. Every week, the game produces such astonishing acts of talent that even a lot of the blowouts can entertain for the virtuosity on display. Ten times a week, you will see tries scored which, if, say, the Wallabies did something like that once a year, it would be preserved and paraded like the shroud of Turin. That’s how superior the NRL is right now in terms of skill.

The only thing is, when the excitement wears off, the end result is too often the same as it was. Next year, when fans have more choices over how to spend their leisure time, they will decide how long they can keep on taking it.

Malcolm Knox always does his homework before publishing. Can you imagine any of the current troglodytes masquerading as RL journalists getting off their self serving butts to do the research required for an article like this? Maybe too busy ghost writing articles for recently retired dumbass players.

There's a simple solution.
An independent panel or computer algorithm that sets a points value for each player and clubs can have a maximum 1000 points on their roster.

 

[Curaeus]

Excellent article written by a real journalist

 

[momo_amp_medo]

A Malcolm Knox article in SMH about salary cap and how entrenched the inequalities of the NRL are (and why no one wants to change this).

The more agitated people are, the less the fundamentals change. When everyone seems angry, the underlying order – who’s on top, who’s underneath – entrenches itself. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. It was a Frenchman, Alphonse Karr, who coined the phrase in 1862, and, rugby league being to us what philosophy is to the French, it’s true of the NRL in 2021.

The more the game enters uncharted new bubbles, the more deeply it reinforces the status quo. The 2021 season is about to end with virtually the same top, middle and bottom groupings as last year. And, with some small variations, the year before, and the year before that. Fourteen of the 16 NRL clubs are stuck in Groundhog Year.

In the modern game, every gut feeling has to stand up to statistical analysis. Is it actually true?

The NRL is clearly segmented into three divisions, which were quite predictable from the outset given the uneven spread of talent. Some clubs can afford to play representative stars off the bench, in positions where other clubs select reserve-graders. Whether the better clubs have poached or developed their talent matters little; the roster differences are vast. The top six at the outset of 2021 were Melbourne, Penrith, the Roosters, Parramatta, South Sydney and Canberra. The bottom five were Canterbury, Brisbane, North Queensland, Manly and the Wests Tigers. The inconsistent swill bogged in the middle were Newcastle, St George Illawarra, Cronulla, the Gold Coast and the Warriors.

What’s the point?
What’s the point?CREDIT:SIMON LETCH
There have been just two divisional changes this season: Manly (assuming Tom Trbojevic is playing) have risen from third division to first, while Canberra have slipped from first to second. Trbojevic has saved not only the Sea Eagles; he has saved the entire league from the embarrassment of a top-to-bottom repeat set.

For a lockdown project, I broke down the 172 matches played up to this weekend’s round into divisional contests. Forty-eight matches were within the divisions. Of the remaining 124 matches, 91 ran completely as predicted: three in four matches were won by the team in the higher division. Of the 33 that went against the flow, nine featured Trbojevic. Take him out, and five out of six NRL games produced the same result they would have produced in the previous two years.

The Origin period should upset this kind of runaway apple cart. To a degree, it did, with the Tigers beating the Origin-gutted Panthers. But even during that mid-year flux, of 29 matches played between teams from different divisions, 20 were won by this year’s (ie, last year’s, and the year before’s) higher team.

Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.
Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.CREDIT:GETTY
Advertisement

Such results might be just what you’d expect at the top and bottom, but they are similarly repetitive for the water-treading middle teams. The Knights, the Sharks, the Warriors, the Titans and the Dragons are all having virtually the same season they had last year and the year before. Their fans must be dying from déjà vu all over again.

Why should this be worthy of commentary? The strong dominate the weak, duh. Better clubs win more matches. Isn’t this the way of the world, the entrenched interests using a crisis to dig themselves in?

Rugby league is meant to have a salary cap that stops this being the way of the NRL world. The salary cap, aside from saving clubs from spending themselves into insolvency, is supposed to offer the game’s supporters a version of hope: a competition that constantly recirculates its winners and losers, generating new leaders, a game in which everybody can start the season feeling they have a chance. Otherwise, you get the dreaded social Darwinism of the European football leagues.

Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.
Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.CREDIT:AP
The evidence is clear, to everyone except the governing body, that the salary cap is a failed model. When Canterbury or Brisbane or the Tigers have to pay second-rate spine players first-rate money to convince them to serve under their coaches, while clubs led by Craig Bellamy or Trent Robinson or Ivan Cleary can get away with securing quality individuals for “unders” - a beautiful euphemism for market manipulation - then the economic measurement of player value is no longer valid. Lower clubs overspend out of desperation and, to confirm the injustice, those clubs are usually the ones who get caught breaching their salary cap. For what, their fans ask – for those players?

The NRL has proposed a salary cap review, but its stomach to take on vested interests has been weakened by the challenges of COVID. Never waste a crisis, say those in prime position. The ruling junta are pretty happy to leave things the way they are, and if the Roosters hadn’t suffered the misfortune of an injury crisis, they would be even happier.

I feel like I’ve made this argument before (plus c’est la meme chose). Plenty of other frustrated observers have. Measuring rugby league players by what they are paid might have been valid if the difference was between a $60,000 contract and a $150,000 one. But in a world where they are certainly happier to take $500,000 and a premiership than $700,000 and a wooden spoon, the rugby league salary is not only an obsolete way to assess value, it’s a sure formula for prolonging the existing order. Alternatives are available – fantasy competitions use non-financial values every week – but few in the NRL are interested in developing them. Why upset the old men’s way of doing business when it is those old men who speak in support of every NRL decision? You scratch my back …

RELATED ARTICLE
Nathan Cleary will need to alter his kicking game under the rule change.
Exclusive
NRL 2021
The rule change set to transform the NRL kicking game forever
Perhaps the NRL has faith that we will be distracted by the dazzle. Every week, the game produces such astonishing acts of talent that even a lot of the blowouts can entertain for the virtuosity on display. Ten times a week, you will see tries scored which, if, say, the Wallabies did something like that once a year, it would be preserved and paraded like the shroud of Turin. That’s how superior the NRL is right now in terms of skill.

The only thing is, when the excitement wears off, the end result is too often the same as it was. Next year, when fans have more choices over how to spend their leisure time, they will decide how long they can keep on taking it.

Malcolm Knox always does his homework before publishing. Can you imagine any of the current troglodytes masquerading as RL journalists getting off their self serving butts to do the research required for an article like this? Maybe too busy ghost writing articles for recently retired dumbass players.

There's a simple solution.
An independent panel or computer algorithm that sets a points value for each player and clubs can have a maximum 1000 points on their roster.

Simple solutions are usually way too complicated for the top NRL honchos.

They like to take a knee to their deep pockets celebrities, media and business types who have a vested interest in keeping issues like “fair salary cap management” and “introduction of a transparent draft system” …… well and truly buried.

 

[Guest]

A Malcolm Knox article in SMH about salary cap and how entrenched the inequalities of the NRL are (and why no one wants to change this).

The more agitated people are, the less the fundamentals change. When everyone seems angry, the underlying order – who’s on top, who’s underneath – entrenches itself. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. It was a Frenchman, Alphonse Karr, who coined the phrase in 1862, and, rugby league being to us what philosophy is to the French, it’s true of the NRL in 2021.

The more the game enters uncharted new bubbles, the more deeply it reinforces the status quo. The 2021 season is about to end with virtually the same top, middle and bottom groupings as last year. And, with some small variations, the year before, and the year before that. Fourteen of the 16 NRL clubs are stuck in Groundhog Year.

In the modern game, every gut feeling has to stand up to statistical analysis. Is it actually true?

The NRL is clearly segmented into three divisions, which were quite predictable from the outset given the uneven spread of talent. Some clubs can afford to play representative stars off the bench, in positions where other clubs select reserve-graders. Whether the better clubs have poached or developed their talent matters little; the roster differences are vast. The top six at the outset of 2021 were Melbourne, Penrith, the Roosters, Parramatta, South Sydney and Canberra. The bottom five were Canterbury, Brisbane, North Queensland, Manly and the Wests Tigers. The inconsistent swill bogged in the middle were Newcastle, St George Illawarra, Cronulla, the Gold Coast and the Warriors.

What’s the point?
What’s the point?CREDIT:SIMON LETCH
There have been just two divisional changes this season: Manly (assuming Tom Trbojevic is playing) have risen from third division to first, while Canberra have slipped from first to second. Trbojevic has saved not only the Sea Eagles; he has saved the entire league from the embarrassment of a top-to-bottom repeat set.

For a lockdown project, I broke down the 172 matches played up to this weekend’s round into divisional contests. Forty-eight matches were within the divisions. Of the remaining 124 matches, 91 ran completely as predicted: three in four matches were won by the team in the higher division. Of the 33 that went against the flow, nine featured Trbojevic. Take him out, and five out of six NRL games produced the same result they would have produced in the previous two years.

The Origin period should upset this kind of runaway apple cart. To a degree, it did, with the Tigers beating the Origin-gutted Panthers. But even during that mid-year flux, of 29 matches played between teams from different divisions, 20 were won by this year’s (ie, last year’s, and the year before’s) higher team.

Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.
Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.CREDIT:GETTY
Advertisement

Such results might be just what you’d expect at the top and bottom, but they are similarly repetitive for the water-treading middle teams. The Knights, the Sharks, the Warriors, the Titans and the Dragons are all having virtually the same season they had last year and the year before. Their fans must be dying from déjà vu all over again.

Why should this be worthy of commentary? The strong dominate the weak, duh. Better clubs win more matches. Isn’t this the way of the world, the entrenched interests using a crisis to dig themselves in?

Rugby league is meant to have a salary cap that stops this being the way of the NRL world. The salary cap, aside from saving clubs from spending themselves into insolvency, is supposed to offer the game’s supporters a version of hope: a competition that constantly recirculates its winners and losers, generating new leaders, a game in which everybody can start the season feeling they have a chance. Otherwise, you get the dreaded social Darwinism of the European football leagues.

Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.
Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.CREDIT:AP
The evidence is clear, to everyone except the governing body, that the salary cap is a failed model. When Canterbury or Brisbane or the Tigers have to pay second-rate spine players first-rate money to convince them to serve under their coaches, while clubs led by Craig Bellamy or Trent Robinson or Ivan Cleary can get away with securing quality individuals for “unders” - a beautiful euphemism for market manipulation - then the economic measurement of player value is no longer valid. Lower clubs overspend out of desperation and, to confirm the injustice, those clubs are usually the ones who get caught breaching their salary cap. For what, their fans ask – for those players?

The NRL has proposed a salary cap review, but its stomach to take on vested interests has been weakened by the challenges of COVID. Never waste a crisis, say those in prime position. The ruling junta are pretty happy to leave things the way they are, and if the Roosters hadn’t suffered the misfortune of an injury crisis, they would be even happier.

I feel like I’ve made this argument before (plus c’est la meme chose). Plenty of other frustrated observers have. Measuring rugby league players by what they are paid might have been valid if the difference was between a $60,000 contract and a $150,000 one. But in a world where they are certainly happier to take $500,000 and a premiership than $700,000 and a wooden spoon, the rugby league salary is not only an obsolete way to assess value, it’s a sure formula for prolonging the existing order. Alternatives are available – fantasy competitions use non-financial values every week – but few in the NRL are interested in developing them. Why upset the old men’s way of doing business when it is those old men who speak in support of every NRL decision? You scratch my back …

RELATED ARTICLE
Nathan Cleary will need to alter his kicking game under the rule change.
Exclusive
NRL 2021
The rule change set to transform the NRL kicking game forever
Perhaps the NRL has faith that we will be distracted by the dazzle. Every week, the game produces such astonishing acts of talent that even a lot of the blowouts can entertain for the virtuosity on display. Ten times a week, you will see tries scored which, if, say, the Wallabies did something like that once a year, it would be preserved and paraded like the shroud of Turin. That’s how superior the NRL is right now in terms of skill.

The only thing is, when the excitement wears off, the end result is too often the same as it was. Next year, when fans have more choices over how to spend their leisure time, they will decide how long they can keep on taking it.

Malcolm Knox always does his homework before publishing. Can you imagine any of the current troglodytes masquerading as RL journalists getting off their self serving butts to do the research required for an article like this? Maybe too busy ghost writing articles for recently retired dumbass players.

There's a simple solution.
An independent panel or computer algorithm that sets a points value for each player and clubs can have a maximum 1000 points on their roster.


Simple solutions are usually way too complicated for the top NRL honchos.

They like to take a knee to their deep pockets celebrities, media and business types who have a vested interest in keeping issues like “fair salary cap management” and “introduction of a transparent draft system” …… well and truly buried.

Yep.
The current system is unfair, unmanageable and unenforceable. I really don't believe that players are taking way unders to play for clubs for 1 reason.
If the players are taking unders then the managers are taking unders as a percentage. I don't believe managers are that altruistic.
Let the clubs pay what they want within a points system. Paper bags will become obsolete.
If they go broke, they go broke just like Drago said.

 

[full80]

A Malcolm Knox article in SMH about salary cap and how entrenched the inequalities of the NRL are (and why no one wants to change this).

The more agitated people are, the less the fundamentals change. When everyone seems angry, the underlying order – who’s on top, who’s underneath – entrenches itself. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. It was a Frenchman, Alphonse Karr, who coined the phrase in 1862, and, rugby league being to us what philosophy is to the French, it’s true of the NRL in 2021.

The more the game enters uncharted new bubbles, the more deeply it reinforces the status quo. The 2021 season is about to end with virtually the same top, middle and bottom groupings as last year. And, with some small variations, the year before, and the year before that. Fourteen of the 16 NRL clubs are stuck in Groundhog Year.

In the modern game, every gut feeling has to stand up to statistical analysis. Is it actually true?

The NRL is clearly segmented into three divisions, which were quite predictable from the outset given the uneven spread of talent. Some clubs can afford to play representative stars off the bench, in positions where other clubs select reserve-graders. Whether the better clubs have poached or developed their talent matters little; the roster differences are vast. The top six at the outset of 2021 were Melbourne, Penrith, the Roosters, Parramatta, South Sydney and Canberra. The bottom five were Canterbury, Brisbane, North Queensland, Manly and the Wests Tigers. The inconsistent swill bogged in the middle were Newcastle, St George Illawarra, Cronulla, the Gold Coast and the Warriors.

What’s the point?
What’s the point?CREDIT:SIMON LETCH
There have been just two divisional changes this season: Manly (assuming Tom Trbojevic is playing) have risen from third division to first, while Canberra have slipped from first to second. Trbojevic has saved not only the Sea Eagles; he has saved the entire league from the embarrassment of a top-to-bottom repeat set.

For a lockdown project, I broke down the 172 matches played up to this weekend’s round into divisional contests. Forty-eight matches were within the divisions. Of the remaining 124 matches, 91 ran completely as predicted: three in four matches were won by the team in the higher division. Of the 33 that went against the flow, nine featured Trbojevic. Take him out, and five out of six NRL games produced the same result they would have produced in the previous two years.

The Origin period should upset this kind of runaway apple cart. To a degree, it did, with the Tigers beating the Origin-gutted Panthers. But even during that mid-year flux, of 29 matches played between teams from different divisions, 20 were won by this year’s (ie, last year’s, and the year before’s) higher team.

Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.
Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.CREDIT:GETTY
Advertisement

Such results might be just what you’d expect at the top and bottom, but they are similarly repetitive for the water-treading middle teams. The Knights, the Sharks, the Warriors, the Titans and the Dragons are all having virtually the same season they had last year and the year before. Their fans must be dying from déjà vu all over again.

Why should this be worthy of commentary? The strong dominate the weak, duh. Better clubs win more matches. Isn’t this the way of the world, the entrenched interests using a crisis to dig themselves in?

Rugby league is meant to have a salary cap that stops this being the way of the NRL world. The salary cap, aside from saving clubs from spending themselves into insolvency, is supposed to offer the game’s supporters a version of hope: a competition that constantly recirculates its winners and losers, generating new leaders, a game in which everybody can start the season feeling they have a chance. Otherwise, you get the dreaded social Darwinism of the European football leagues.

Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.
Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.CREDIT:AP
The evidence is clear, to everyone except the governing body, that the salary cap is a failed model. When Canterbury or Brisbane or the Tigers have to pay second-rate spine players first-rate money to convince them to serve under their coaches, while clubs led by Craig Bellamy or Trent Robinson or Ivan Cleary can get away with securing quality individuals for “unders” - a beautiful euphemism for market manipulation - then the economic measurement of player value is no longer valid. Lower clubs overspend out of desperation and, to confirm the injustice, those clubs are usually the ones who get caught breaching their salary cap. For what, their fans ask – for those players?

The NRL has proposed a salary cap review, but its stomach to take on vested interests has been weakened by the challenges of COVID. Never waste a crisis, say those in prime position. The ruling junta are pretty happy to leave things the way they are, and if the Roosters hadn’t suffered the misfortune of an injury crisis, they would be even happier.

I feel like I’ve made this argument before (plus c’est la meme chose). Plenty of other frustrated observers have. Measuring rugby league players by what they are paid might have been valid if the difference was between a $60,000 contract and a $150,000 one. But in a world where they are certainly happier to take $500,000 and a premiership than $700,000 and a wooden spoon, the rugby league salary is not only an obsolete way to assess value, it’s a sure formula for prolonging the existing order. Alternatives are available – fantasy competitions use non-financial values every week – but few in the NRL are interested in developing them. Why upset the old men’s way of doing business when it is those old men who speak in support of every NRL decision? You scratch my back …

RELATED ARTICLE
Nathan Cleary will need to alter his kicking game under the rule change.
Exclusive
NRL 2021
The rule change set to transform the NRL kicking game forever
Perhaps the NRL has faith that we will be distracted by the dazzle. Every week, the game produces such astonishing acts of talent that even a lot of the blowouts can entertain for the virtuosity on display. Ten times a week, you will see tries scored which, if, say, the Wallabies did something like that once a year, it would be preserved and paraded like the shroud of Turin. That’s how superior the NRL is right now in terms of skill.

The only thing is, when the excitement wears off, the end result is too often the same as it was. Next year, when fans have more choices over how to spend their leisure time, they will decide how long they can keep on taking it.

Malcolm Knox always does his homework before publishing. Can you imagine any of the current troglodytes masquerading as RL journalists getting off their self serving butts to do the research required for an article like this? Maybe too busy ghost writing articles for recently retired dumbass players.

Vested interests don't give up power voluntarily. In any field. The only time it happens is when they are forced to give up their advantages for some other reason. And the evidence seems to suggest that they'd rather have a 2nd Brisbane team than more competitive teams in Sydney.

Unlike the AFL I don't think the Nrl cares much about the existing fans in those 2nd and third tier clubs, or they would be worried about the effect of having a few teams dominate every year. They're obviously looking at expanding audiences. Otherwise they would care that the comp is so boringly predictable. Teams with multi millionaire backers soon will be the only recipe for success. I really like Rugby League but I like it more because I have a team I'm passionate about - I'm probably not going to watch Bulldogs vs Storm, just for the hell of it. So, I reckon, if the NRL wants to keep existing fans, it would be wise to try and support the struggling clubs rather than blame them for not having Jamie Packer or Nick Politis as backers.

 

[rihannafan1]

Great journalism by chammas

Just for the record Mitchell Pearce is good mates with both Blocker's kids and Siro's kids, and also very tight with the Foran brothers who he went to school with... and newsflash Junior Junior not currently playing for Manly or Warriors or Souths, or waterpolo (Aidan Roach played rep water polo).

What a load of bollocks baloney. Fast becoming the new James Pooper this bloke.

Anyway why would Mitchell Pearce need to go via Blocker Roach's son, via Lee, to chat about a deal at the Tigers??? His dad is Wayne Pearce for crying out loud.

hahahaha

 

[hodgo]

A Malcolm Knox article in SMH about salary cap and how entrenched the inequalities of the NRL are (and why no one wants to change this).

The more agitated people are, the less the fundamentals change. When everyone seems angry, the underlying order – who’s on top, who’s underneath – entrenches itself. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. It was a Frenchman, Alphonse Karr, who coined the phrase in 1862, and, rugby league being to us what philosophy is to the French, it’s true of the NRL in 2021.

The more the game enters uncharted new bubbles, the more deeply it reinforces the status quo. The 2021 season is about to end with virtually the same top, middle and bottom groupings as last year. And, with some small variations, the year before, and the year before that. Fourteen of the 16 NRL clubs are stuck in Groundhog Year.

In the modern game, every gut feeling has to stand up to statistical analysis. Is it actually true?

The NRL is clearly segmented into three divisions, which were quite predictable from the outset given the uneven spread of talent. Some clubs can afford to play representative stars off the bench, in positions where other clubs select reserve-graders. Whether the better clubs have poached or developed their talent matters little; the roster differences are vast. The top six at the outset of 2021 were Melbourne, Penrith, the Roosters, Parramatta, South Sydney and Canberra. The bottom five were Canterbury, Brisbane, North Queensland, Manly and the Wests Tigers. The inconsistent swill bogged in the middle were Newcastle, St George Illawarra, Cronulla, the Gold Coast and the Warriors.

What’s the point?
What’s the point?CREDIT:SIMON LETCH
There have been just two divisional changes this season: Manly (assuming Tom Trbojevic is playing) have risen from third division to first, while Canberra have slipped from first to second. Trbojevic has saved not only the Sea Eagles; he has saved the entire league from the embarrassment of a top-to-bottom repeat set.

For a lockdown project, I broke down the 172 matches played up to this weekend’s round into divisional contests. Forty-eight matches were within the divisions. Of the remaining 124 matches, 91 ran completely as predicted: three in four matches were won by the team in the higher division. Of the 33 that went against the flow, nine featured Trbojevic. Take him out, and five out of six NRL games produced the same result they would have produced in the previous two years.

The Origin period should upset this kind of runaway apple cart. To a degree, it did, with the Tigers beating the Origin-gutted Panthers. But even during that mid-year flux, of 29 matches played between teams from different divisions, 20 were won by this year’s (ie, last year’s, and the year before’s) higher team.

Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.
Who’s saved the NRL from complete predictability in 2021? Tom Trbojevic says hi.CREDIT:GETTY
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Such results might be just what you’d expect at the top and bottom, but they are similarly repetitive for the water-treading middle teams. The Knights, the Sharks, the Warriors, the Titans and the Dragons are all having virtually the same season they had last year and the year before. Their fans must be dying from déjà vu all over again.

Why should this be worthy of commentary? The strong dominate the weak, duh. Better clubs win more matches. Isn’t this the way of the world, the entrenched interests using a crisis to dig themselves in?

Rugby league is meant to have a salary cap that stops this being the way of the NRL world. The salary cap, aside from saving clubs from spending themselves into insolvency, is supposed to offer the game’s supporters a version of hope: a competition that constantly recirculates its winners and losers, generating new leaders, a game in which everybody can start the season feeling they have a chance. Otherwise, you get the dreaded social Darwinism of the European football leagues.

Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.
Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row before their run was ended by Inter Milan last season.CREDIT:AP
The evidence is clear, to everyone except the governing body, that the salary cap is a failed model. When Canterbury or Brisbane or the Tigers have to pay second-rate spine players first-rate money to convince them to serve under their coaches, while clubs led by Craig Bellamy or Trent Robinson or Ivan Cleary can get away with securing quality individuals for “unders” - a beautiful euphemism for market manipulation - then the economic measurement of player value is no longer valid. Lower clubs overspend out of desperation and, to confirm the injustice, those clubs are usually the ones who get caught breaching their salary cap. For what, their fans ask – for those players?

The NRL has proposed a salary cap review, but its stomach to take on vested interests has been weakened by the challenges of COVID. Never waste a crisis, say those in prime position. The ruling junta are pretty happy to leave things the way they are, and if the Roosters hadn’t suffered the misfortune of an injury crisis, they would be even happier.

I feel like I’ve made this argument before (plus c’est la meme chose). Plenty of other frustrated observers have. Measuring rugby league players by what they are paid might have been valid if the difference was between a $60,000 contract and a $150,000 one. But in a world where they are certainly happier to take $500,000 and a premiership than $700,000 and a wooden spoon, the rugby league salary is not only an obsolete way to assess value, it’s a sure formula for prolonging the existing order. Alternatives are available – fantasy competitions use non-financial values every week – but few in the NRL are interested in developing them. Why upset the old men’s way of doing business when it is those old men who speak in support of every NRL decision? You scratch my back …

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Perhaps the NRL has faith that we will be distracted by the dazzle. Every week, the game produces such astonishing acts of talent that even a lot of the blowouts can entertain for the virtuosity on display. Ten times a week, you will see tries scored which, if, say, the Wallabies did something like that once a year, it would be preserved and paraded like the shroud of Turin. That’s how superior the NRL is right now in terms of skill.

The only thing is, when the excitement wears off, the end result is too often the same as it was. Next year, when fans have more choices over how to spend their leisure time, they will decide how long they can keep on taking it.

The most valid and interesting yet known article I have read in a long time

 

[851]

Tbh think we really need a starting prop to partner Stefano and a left centre before anything else.

Twal needs to be in the prop rotation, never to return to lock

 

[TheDaBoss]

Brian To'o is off contract 2023


...... easily top 5 wingers in the comp

 

[Tiger5150]

Brian To'o is off contract 2023


...... easily top 5 wingers in the comp

Would love him, but you will never drag him from the Riff

 

[weststigerman]

Tbh think we really need a starting prop to partner Stefano and a left centre before anything else.

Twal needs to be in the prop rotation, never to return to lock

I agree Twal needs to go back to prop, but I think he's better from the bench after the first 20 minutes. He tends to get smashed when he starts.

Need someone like a Luke Thompson type player that has mobility and leg speed to go with Stefano up front.

 

[Elderslie_Tiger]


 

[Spartan117]

The QLD takeover has begun

Madden, Simpkin, Joffa and now Dotoi....

Welcome aboard.

 

[Spartan117]


That's a cracker of a Name and Hair style...

My Fav player already

 

[Sully]


That's a cracker of a Name and Hair style...

My Fav player already

His hair will match our jerseys.

Looks good on his feet and if he can stay on his wing and read defence, we may find Noffa playing KOE cup where he should have been most of this year.

 

[Camel2281]

Brooks aint goin nowhere , seems too many on here believe in Santa Claus , get it through ya heads Brooks is here next year

Sucks doesn't it

 

[TheDaBoss]

Brian To'o is off contract 2023


...... easily top 5 wingers in the comp

Would love him, but you will never drag him from the Riff

The bastard is so damn slippery.... breaks tackles with ease...has speed to burn..good defender.... and is a metre eater...

Damn good talent

 

[TheDaBoss]


That's a cracker of a Name and Hair style...

My Fav player already

His hair will match our jerseys.

Looks good on his feet and if he can stay on his wing and read defence, we may find Noffa playing KOE cup where he should have been most of this year.

The hairstyle oh yeahh

 

[Tiger5150]

Brian To'o is off contract 2023


...... easily top 5 wingers in the comp

Would love him, but you will never drag him from the Riff

The bastard is so damn slippery.... breaks tackles with ease...has speed to burn..good defender.... and is a metre eater...

Damn good talent

Comes across as a great bloke as well. My daughter is a Tigers fan but loves him. I recently got him to send her one of those "swysh" videos for her birthday and he did a great job on it, sang happy birthday to her with Luaia

 

[jrtiger]


That's a cracker of a Name and Hair style...

My Fav player already

His hair will match our jerseys.

Looks good on his feet and if he can stay on his wing and read defence, we may find Noffa playing KOE cup where he should have been most of this year.

still very young and will most likely feature in our Jersey Flegg side. that said he may well be a development player, but I'm unsure what the terms of the deal are.