Free kick for the Broncos, Cowboys
Phil Rothfield Sports Editor-at-large
QUEENSLAND teams the Cowboys and the Broncos will get a massive free kick from a lopsided NRL draw when the most anticipated season in years kicks off tomorrow night.
While the salary cap is an integral part of the game to keep the competition on a level playing field, an unbalanced draw is doing the exact opposite.
The Daily Telegraph's analysis of each club over the 26 premiership rounds strongly suggests the Cowboys and the Broncos have more favourable schedules than their rivals.
Johnathan Thurston's Cowboys only play the most highly ranked teams in the NRL betting market on 10 occasions compared to other clubs who have to play the top teams 14 times in the race to the finals.
The Cowboys also get the luxury of playing competition strugglers the Cronulla Sharks and the Newcastle Knights twice while other teams only play them once.
North Queensland only play grand finalists the Dragons and Roosters once as well as the Wests Tigers and Storm once.
The Broncos' playing schedule is almost as favourable as the Cowboys. They have only 11 games against the top eight sides.
They get to play six relatively easier games against the Sharks, Cowboys and Knights. They play the Dragons, Roosters and Tigers only once and don't have the arduous road trip to New Zealand to play the Warriors.
Compare the Broncos' draw to the Wests Tigers, who only get three of the easier games by playing the Sharks, Cowboys and Knights once.
Match venues and home ground advantages will also have an important bearing on the competition and will affect fans.
The Dragons have seven of their last 10 games at home. Parramatta get five of their first seven games at home. Melbourne get seven of their first 10 at home.
Cronulla supporters don't get to see Parramatta at Shark Park, robbing their fans of seeing heroes Jarryd Hayne, Fuifui Moimoi and Nathan Hindmarsh in live action. The NRL draw used to be done a fairer way by breaking the competition into two pools.
On one side of the draw the teams that ran 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th and 15th the previous year would play each other twice and meet 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12, 14th and 16th once.
In more recent years, the NRL has asked all clubs to nominate from 1 to 16 which teams they would prefer to play at home.
The Queensland sides put local derbies as their top selections. The Sydney teams mostly pick the Dragons and Parramatta - the biggest crowd drawers - high on the list.
There have been many ideas discussed at the NRL chief executives' conferences over the years to have a fairer competition draw.
One put forward by Wests Tigers CEO Stephen Humphreys was to lengthen the season by six weeks in a competition that would ensure every side played each other twice.
The Humphreys blueprint would potentially raise an extra $20 million a year in television money, which would go to the players via a salary cap increase of $1 million per club.
However, the idea lacked support because of the obvious dangers of player burnout in a season that already includes State of Origin, City-Country and a Test match.
Other ideas floated include the eventual expansion to a 20-team competition including sides from Perth, Central Coast, Brisbane and Papua New Guinea. Every side would play each other once. There would be three free weekends during the season for State of Origin
and City-Country.
