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NRL grant for Rep Football
With todays paper again raising the prospect of players defecting to Union, or using Union as a bargaining chip, Im sure there will again be talk of central contracts. Ive always been strongly against these, and highly in favour of increased payments to rep players. This time I am going to take my suggestion one step further.
What I am suggesting is the NRL should give an annual grant to the ARL and NZRL purely for player payments. Say if it was $2 million, this would be proportioned according to the number of players running around in the NRL who declare their allegiance to each nation. (I am deliberately leaving out the smaller nations to keep it simple) Say it was 75% Aussie, then the ARL would get 1.5 million. This 1.5 million, would be used to fund extra appearance money for rep players in Origins and Tests on top of what they already get. Furthermore, so that the absolute gun players get rewarded, extra money could be put aside for man of the match awards or 3-2-1 (as chosen by the selectors).
Basically this system rewards players for their current form, and we all know the form of RL players is extremely variable.
Central contracts reward players for past form. This system rewards players for current form, and rewards them for making themselves available for rep football. So in conclusion the best way to keep our stars in RL and the NRL over the ESL, is for the NRL to fund increased appearance money for players in rep fixtures.
With todays paper again raising the prospect of players defecting to Union, or using Union as a bargaining chip, Im sure there will again be talk of central contracts. Ive always been strongly against these, and highly in favour of increased payments to rep players. This time I am going to take my suggestion one step further.
What I am suggesting is the NRL should give an annual grant to the ARL and NZRL purely for player payments. Say if it was $2 million, this would be proportioned according to the number of players running around in the NRL who declare their allegiance to each nation. (I am deliberately leaving out the smaller nations to keep it simple) Say it was 75% Aussie, then the ARL would get 1.5 million. This 1.5 million, would be used to fund extra appearance money for rep players in Origins and Tests on top of what they already get. Furthermore, so that the absolute gun players get rewarded, extra money could be put aside for man of the match awards or 3-2-1 (as chosen by the selectors).
Basically this system rewards players for their current form, and we all know the form of RL players is extremely variable.
Central contracts reward players for past form. This system rewards players for current form, and rewards them for making themselves available for rep football. So in conclusion the best way to keep our stars in RL and the NRL over the ESL, is for the NRL to fund increased appearance money for players in rep fixtures.