A surprisingly excellent idea in an article yesterday

[sooperdooper]

it doesnt work in our game...
form in this game is so up and down.
i mean look at the aussie squad, half of them are nuffies

 

[paulyt]

It works in cricket because the clubs are disadvantaged as they play so much international cricket at the same time as domestic cricket. The players selected to play for Australia are only available for (normally) the first couple of games, one or 2 through out the season then the final if their happens to make it without them.

 

[Thomas]

The ARU system works like this:

Club players earn diddly squat. If they get a S14 contract from the Reds/Brumbies. Force or Tards then they start to earn a little bit. Small amounts for younger players etc.

The most a single S14 franchise is allowed to pay their players is $150K. The rest is either from third party payments or if the player is deemed to be worthy of an ARU contract. I think there are about 50 or so players on ARU contracts, but I could be wrong (I think cricket there are only 30 or so on ACA contracts).

The plus side is that the ARU can entice players to stay. The downside, which has been touched upon in this thread, is that players who are good enough to earn a S14 contract but not good enough to get an ARU one will look elsewhere for money. This is the main reason that there are nearly as many Aussie RU players playing over in Europe and Japan as there are players playing in Australia on S14 contracts.

Why would you stay and play footy on $150K with only a small chance of getting an ARU contract when you can go O/S and earn 3 times that?

I think its the wrong way to go for the NRL. Keep the salary cap...maybe raise it...but include third party payments that aren't included in the salary cap so the elite players can earn what they are entitled to.

I reckon the NRL is getting a pretty f**king good deal out of its star players...

 

[joshreading]

How about we just make the top 32 players get a centrally contracted 'top up' say - two hundred and fifty thousand BUT each club will only get TWO of these players. THUS the top players will be forced to move (and thus continue the evening) to get the two hundred and fifty grand extra.

This central contract agreement would only go for two years - on a renewing basis - thus they could get rid of old wood, or players who fail to continue to perform. These would NOT need to be Aussie/Kiwi Rep players but players that a central NRL team consider important to the game.