El Diablo
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http://www.smh.com.au/news/lhqnews/...1248977235953.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2
A mad, sad act of desperation
Phil Gould | August 2, 2009
Karmichael Hunt has signed with the AFL, but the sky is not falling in.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
This is a farce on so many levels. Actually, I dont know why Im laughing. Its very sad.
Surely this represents the final nail in the coffin of the current structure of the NRLs ownership and administration. Ill come back to this in a moment.
THE AFL
I have no interest in AFL, so how they spend their money and justify this decision is no business of mine.
However, I have no doubt this latest publicity stunt will cause a big backlash from its own player ranks.
Even if Hunt becomes a champion in the code (which he may well do), the decision to sign a 22-year-old rugby league player to a specialist sport such as Australian football, to play at the very top level, for $1 million a season, is irresponsible.
They can dress this up anyway they like. The bottom line is that the top players and even the youngsters coming through the junior development pathways in the AFL will look at this deal and ask, why so much for a bloke who has never played a top-grade AFL game?
Signing Hunt to a deal of this magnitude will not attract one more player to the Gold Coast franchise simply because of his introduction to their roster. This is an act of desperation. It is also acknowledgment that the Gold Coast is a rugby league stronghold and they need a gimmick like this to get a toehold in the area.
The locals will see this for what it truly represents.
KARMICHAEL HUNT
Ive never met Karmichael Hunt.
From a distance, Ive admired his ability, skill and toughness. Hes one of the elite athletes in our game.
However, I see a young man who has accepted all the development, coaching, money, adoration, plaudits and representative decorations our game has to offer. Yet Ive never once heard him praise, promote, show loyalty or offer thanks to the game that has given him so much in such a short space of time. He has treated rugby league as his a personal life-support system and now walks away without a second thought.
Maybe Im reading him wrong. I hope Im wrong and Im prepared to bow to anyone who can set me straight on his issue.
However, this is the perception I have of young Hunt.
At age 22, he claims hes in search of a new challenge in life and this decision to join the AFL is not just about the money.
Firstly, when someone says its not about the money, you can be guaranteed its about the money.
Secondly, if he was truly in need of a real challenge in sport, then what about the challenge of helping the Broncos claw their way out of the obvious hole they are in? The club that developed and nurtured this kid from a boy to hero is in desperate need of leadership and courage to get it through a difficult time over the next few seasons.
For the last five years, senior players have guided and assisted Hunts rise to fame as well as giving him the opportunity to win premierships, play for Queensland and Australia.
Now, when they desperately need him to stand up and help develop the next era of Broncos culture, he decides he needs a new challenge.
Its easy for him to walk away because the restrictive salary-cap laws and the under-resourced NRL places unfair limits on the amount of money our top players can earn.
No, this has nothing to do with a new challenge. This is pennies from heaven. Mind you, how many of us could turn down a $1 million-a-year offer to change careers? In this sense, its hard to be critical of Hunt. So, good luck to him. I hope hes happy.
However, this scenario and others like it have highlighted the weaknesses in our game and the desperate need for change in management and ownership.
THE NRL
NRLs favourite response to situations like this is to say, "The sky isnt falling and were very happy with our position".
This statement is not one of leadership or confidence, its purely a throw-away, damage-control line designed to belittle, as some kind of fool, anyone who dares to criticise the role of the governing body.
It makes these statements to deflect attention from the inadequacies of management and the problems created by having a media company own the game.
Why are so many top-line players prepared to turn their back on rugby league? The obvious answer is money.
How does the AFL afford to pay players, with no experience, $1 million a season, when the NRL cant even offer Hunt half this amount, despite the fact hes one of the top 40 players in our game?
But there also are other factors.
Players might love rugby league, but, lets be honest, they have no respect or loyalty towards the NRL. Player managers, the media and the media company that owns the game have no respect or loyalty towards the players or people within the game.
The NRL is a partnership between the decaying and ineffective ARL and a media company, News Ltd, whose publications and journalists attack people within the game and the code itself with such unbridled vindictiveness, unfairness and ferocity that it belies any suggestion they even remotely act in the best interests of rugby league.
This situation is only exacerbated by the fact rugby league has been under-sold, under-funded and denied all best efforts to develop at an optimum or even acceptable pace for the past 14 years.
This in turn limits the earning power of players and clubs, and has resulted in more players heading to England, union and now the AFL.
It has also contributed to the lack of depth in experienced player talent among NRL clubs, along with the decay and pending demise of our reserve grade/premier league/state league competitions in NSW.
We need a change to the way rugby league is run and this cannot happen until the game is independently owned and administered.
This cant happen until the sky does fall and wipes out the systems we have in place so we can rebuild something strong and exciting to take our game into the future.
So I agree with the NRL: "The sky isnt falling on rugby league."
And therein lies the problem, because thats exactly what we need.
