THE stewardship of David Gallop becomes more impressive and significant the longer he is away from the NRL. The former chief executive gave the league a sophistication that it needed but had, prior to his stint at the controls, routinely rejected.
To build league into a united and authoritative football competition was no easy task given the suspicions and angst of the Super League eruption. Gallop had to douse the smouldering aftermath of the 1997 season and try to instil respect into a code that could not spell the word. He did it so successfully that the AFL's push into rugby league territory on the Gold Coast and in western Sydney is proving harder and will no doubt be more expensive than initially plotted.
And even though Gallop helped guide the code to the essential formation of an independent commission and a substantial broadcast agreement, the NRL is beginning to look like its old ramshackle self.
It is blinding obvious how the NRL has slipped back into its former reckless and self-satisfied ways when you consider the manner it has handled the ASADA investigation into Cronulla compared with the strategy adopted by the AFL as the anti-doping agency probes Essendon. The AFL club looks worryingly compromised as information is discovered and published about a supplements regime run by sport science consultant Stephen Dank in 2012. The status, banned or otherwise, of the drugs given to the Bombers players remains unclear but that senior management lost control of the club is not.
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Yet it has co-operated willingly with ASADA. Officials and coaches have been interviewed and now the players are in for their grillings. Essendon chairman David Evans has ensured the players will assist the inquiry. As well, the AFL heavies have made it clear they expect the club to co-operate fully. Such has been the AFL's keenness to work with ASADA that boosters for the NRL in the media have twisted this openness to suggest that the league's chief executive, Andrew Demetriou, had struck a cosy arrangement with ASADA and the federal government that would ensure his footballers received no punishment if, in fact, they had breached ASADA policy. The lunacy of that proposition is self-evident yet it still has currency within the rugby league community. The paranoia is helping no one.
Dave Smith is the new NRL boss, while Gallop now runs Football Federation Australia. Smith has been unimpressive. Other than restructuring his administration, which was timely, he has been timid and reactionary. He has given no obvious direction -- or any that has been heeded -- to his code over the very serious ASADA investigation.
Cronulla dill Wade Graham thought it appropriate to rock up to his interview as though he was going to a game of poker with his mates on a hot summer night. It was an indication of the respect Cronulla had for the ASADA process and the atmospherics that have been allowed to fester under an uninspiring Smith.
ASADA broke off that interview when it became clear Graham was playing dead. It appeared to take Smith a week to get a transcript of the abbreviated meeting -- was it conducted in Latin? Anyway, it prompted Smith to say this: "Having reviewed the first interview with senior counsel, we do not believe the interview process should have been suspended and we will work with ASADA to find the best way of bringing this to a close." Good luck with that, for Smith seems oblivious to the fact that ASADA sets the rules and not the NRL or Cronulla.
Presumably, that means Smith will tell the Cronulla players to be more forthcoming than Graham was. But there seems to be no suggestion that is Smith's intention -- he has not shown that strength of control before -- so the standoff between ASADA and Cronulla will presumably continue. That reflects poorly on the NRL executives as well as the club, its officials and players.
Somehow interim Cronulla chief executive Bruno Cullen found a positive in Smith's observations. "I'm pleased with Dave's statement in that regard and, as we always have been, we are ready, willing and very eager to get back into the interview process," Cullen said on Thursday. You can actually hear the spin. It is not ASADA alone that is displeased by recalcitrant Cronulla. World Anti-Doping Agency president John Fahey roasted the NRL for failing to show the same strength of leadership on the supplements investigation as displayed by the AFL.
"We're certainly disappointed in the comments because we don't think they accurately reflect the position," Smith said. "We make no apology for working through ASADA. They are the appropriate body to deal with the investigation process and we're encouraging them to move forward."
It is impossible to know what Smith means in that last statement. The NRL is not being criticised for not working with ASADA. It is being chastised for not working with ASADA in good faith.
Gallop left the NRL and that's proved good news for soccer. Smith joined the NRL and that's proved even better news for the AFL.
