The NRL shouldnt have left the door open for them to exploit by keeping the squad and play for no points. Should set them to a negative point balance so that it is impossible to reach the finals this year. Then instead of an open-ended chance to get under the cap give them a hard deadline of say 4 weeks. Once that deadline is up if they are under the cap they can play for points, if not they start on -x points for next season as well.
Give them definite boundaries or they will take the piss
The problem for Parramatta - with the NRL announcing 7 months into the salary season, is that losing any player now only gains them 5 twelfths of cap space
So if 2 players are on $600,000 and one is on $400,000 to gain $600,000 in this seasons cap they have to offload all three for this season to comply and then they're $1 million under the cap for next season
They can't re-sign those players as they've gone elsewhere and they're f**ked
No club in their right minds would get rid of 3 high quality players and end up miles f**king short of the cap again for the next season and they're on a hiding to nothing for the next three years as well as this one - and for what? So they can have an outside chance of making the finals and stop fans from other clubs calling them cheats? Where's the upside for Parramatta there?
If it was me, I'd try and offload Watmough, who is injured and who's signing was a mistake
His salary alone - counted in full for next season actually gives them ROOM in next seasons cap and they don't have to offload two other highly talented players to boot
Todd Greenburg talked about giving Parramatta hope for this year as he didn't want to see the soul destroying procession like we witnessed with the Melbourne Storm
Well, I can't see how he's managed that. He's merely giving the illusion that's what he's doing. Yes Parramatta could put themselves in a position where they can play for points this year but in order to do that they have to damage themselves for this year and the next three or four whilst they completely rebuild again
If it were my club I'd say f**k you. We're not playing for points. We'll look to get ourselves 100% correct for next season and go from there
They have few other sensible options available unless Watmough can be legally retired this season and have his salary backdated to the beginning of the season. As others have said - that's not guaranteed.
