Ok, well I have now had some time to sit back, relax and look at things from a less emotional perspective and have concluded that yesterday the NRL made its greatest strategic move in its entire history. Here are my thoughts or theory on why I believe this to be so.
The NRL is unhappy with the current regime and the way they have operated the club, they've made no secret of this fact, so it was important to remove these people from the club. The NRL has got Parra for doing some dodgy things in relation to the salary cap, I've got no doubt about that, but what is the extent of this 'dodgy' behaviour?
Is it 25 fake invoices of just one?
Is it a cash payment to everyone in the top 25 of is it just Lee Mossop?
Have we procured Third Party Agreements for every player or is it just a Watmough and maybe one other?
At this stage, we don't really know and for the NRL's purpose of the offence of breaching the salary cap we really only have to have done it once to really be guilty of an offence. So the NRL uses it’s public statement to send a powerful message to the club. No one outside of the board really knows exactly the extent of the breach and even the board doesn’t probably know at this stage the strength of any evidence the NRL has actually got when they determined that breach. The board probably believes that the NRL hard evidence is bugger all, but they’ve still got something and really wants this evidence tested in a real court.
For whatever reason, as part of it's investigation the NRL makes a determination that all our TPA's are dodgy and not at arms length or whatever and they have to be now included in our salary cap. This is a key determination in all of this, as from what I understand, this particular determination is unprecedented at this level. The NRL had to know that this was a risky determination to make, as it is probably the only real reason that we now find ourselves over the cap for the 2016 season. It was risky because the NRL probably knows that if the club wanted to challenge this that there is a risk that the NRL could lose this aspect of the breach in court. My guess is that although the NRL is confident in their findings and with their evidence, they don’t really want to have this evidence tested in a court (for a multitude of reasons).
So the NRL sends the club a breach notice with a penalty that involves all our points so far, a pointless fine, which for an organisation that probably churns through the fine amount in the pokies every week, isn't going to lose much sleep over, but then also requests the removal of our current regime (key board/executive).
When they delivered the breach notice they informed the club that they can play for points once it is salary cap compliant, but this is also contingent on accepting the terms of the breach notice (accepting guilt, paying the fine, board/executive leave and getting under the cap). Now my guess here is that the NRL knew that we would become salary cap compliant before our next match before yesterday, as they were fully aware of the Watmough situation and they knew that Ryan Morgan had just departed the club last week, already freeing up some of that $570l. I'd be shocked if we need to do too much else player wise, except for maybe a player at the bottom end of the Top 25.
If the NRL had just excluded us from the Finals, it would have given the club time to analyse the entire breach notice and pick the eyes out of it legally and mount a legal challenge. But in making the decision that if we accept the breach notice and get under the cap (something they knew would happen within days) then this would give the Parramatta players and fans hope, excitement, and anticipation to move on for the future and mount a challenge to get into the Finals. The NRL knows that making the Finals will be tough and probably won’t be achieved, but if a salary cap compliant team can do it from here, who are they to stop them playing??
However, what this particular part of the NRL decision has also done has immediately turned the fans and the general rugby league public against the club’s board and executive who want to stick around and challenge the matter. 24 hours ago there was great animosity towards the NRL, but that sentiment appears to have grown to more of acceptance by the majority of the fan base to move on. They’ve played the We Want To Help and We Want You To Be Successful card to get the fans on board with their decision and even more turn the fans and eventually the playing group against the board/executive for them to put pressure on them just bugger off.
The NRL has put the club between a rock and a hard place - You either accept the decision within 5 days and move on and start again, or you fight it and play for nothing, knowing full well that the Parra club will consider challenging this matter in court. The club going to court might have a good legal argument, but there are no guarantees in a court situation. The NRL knows full well that a court would turn the outcome into a lottery and the NRL knows they need to nip it in the bud before it even gets started.
For an NRL Club, the Team and it’s fans are the most important part of it and at the end of the day, the Team will always win over the Administration from a fans point of view. The NRL knows that the Team and the fans will dictate to the club that it wants it’s chance to continue the season immediately.
As I said at the start, it is just my theory, but I think it’s close to the mark. You have to admire the NRL’s strategic nous on this one, they really outsmarted the club and will ultimately get what they want in the end.
