Whether we want to admit to it or not, the game is driven by star power.
And the NRL's biggest personality right now is Sonny Bill Williams and yet the game has failed miserably to promote him right. Friday's game was pumped up throughout the media as far back as the moment Williams signed with the Roosters to return to the NRL. It went off again the moment the draw came out.
It was counted down from the opening round and finally we got to Sonny Bill-Bulldogs week and ... where was the effort? All the hype was media driven with little assistance from the code or clubs.
I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise. We tried desperately hard to get Israel Folau and when we needed help from the NRL they didn't understand it at all, dragged their heels and we lost him.
To show you how simple the help we were looking for was, it centred on one issue. We asked them what he was going to be valued at so we could get to that figure and register his contract. They refused to give us a figure, instead telling us to register the contract first and they would then tell us whether it was sufficient.
We asked them just to give us a figure and we would get there. They continually refused, even after we asked for a ballpark figure.
In the end we had no choice but to try to guess his market value and by the time we finally got there it had dragged on for weeks and Folau's management, concerned at delays, had found time to open negotiations elsewhere and he was gone. He was a player that should have been selling our game. The same as Sonny Bill Williams.