Man this sucks
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...-ridiculous-rule/story-e6frexnr-1225779730506
JUST hours before the biggest game of his life, Parramatta hooker Kevin Kingston was told he didn't have a place at the Eels next year.
Kingston is expected to pack his bags, sell up and travel around Australia with his wife. The Eels rake has become the very public face of a salary cap rule squeezing at least 20 players out of the game.
"It's a joke. This kid should have an NRL future. He's being thrown out of the game by a ridiculous rule," Kingston's manager Lance Thompson fumed yesterday.
Kingston's plight - and it's the same for many players like him - is that match payments earned this year come off next year's salary cap, making them unemployable.
"Anything they earn this year goes into the cap next year," Thompson said. "It is just a ridiculous rule and it is ruining the game. Blokes are being rubbed out because they are over-achieving."
Kingston was told yesterday that Parramatta couldn't accommodate him because his salary cap value for next year is $110,000 with match payments from his 17 NRL games in 2009.
"I have had clubs interested in him but not at $110,000," Thompson said. "If he signs on for $50,000 and gets match payments then he will automatically be included in the cap at $110,000. It is just ridiculous."
Another Parramatta star in Todd Lowrie is facing a similar dilemma. Other players who look like being forced out include Brent Crisp, Misi Taulapapa, Bryan Norrie, Jacob Selmes, Danny Galea, Rhys Hanbury, Aidan Kirk and Keith Peters.
And Panther veteran Frank Puletua was yesterday forced to take a $30,000 paycut because of his match payments in 2009.
"What happens is if you have a player on a $50,000 contract and $3000 a game in match payments, he will go into the cap this year at $50,000," explains Panthers coach Matt Elliott.
"But if he is on the same deal next year, and he has played 10 games this year, then he goes into the salary cap at $50,000, plus the $30,000 he got during the year in match payments, plus another $30,000 because they think he will play another 10. So he is on $50,000, but his salary cap value becomes $110,000.
"It makes them unemployable because it just loads the cap up. If a player was on $200,000 I could understand it, but not for these fringe players. They are the ones that need help."
The rule has been condemned by NRL clubs, players and agents and has prompted the Player Management Association to lodge a complaint to the Rugby League Players' Association.
"The Players Management Association has met the RLPA to discuss this issue," leading manager Steve Gillis said.
"We consider it a major problem for players and the game.
"The RLPA is aware of the problem and keen to pursue the matter with the NRL.
"You would think if we can approach the NRL in a formal and controlled manner that common sense will prevail and something will be done to ensure these players aren't spat out of the system when they shouldn't be."
The rule has also stopped promising players from being selected to play NRL this year. "It dictates who we can select," said an official from an NRL club who asked not to be named.
"We have had blokes we have wanted to select in first grade, but have been told we can't because it will blow the cap.
"We have had guys who would have been the second-best player in our club in their position that haven't gotten a start when the best player has been injured because their match payments from the year before would've gone into this year's cap.
"It has meant they haven't been able to show what they can do in the NRL and then they can't get contracts the following year."
Sydney Roosters' Peter O'Sullivan, the game's No. 1 recruitment man, said the rule needs an overhaul.
"I've been an advocate of a rule that if every club passes on those players then they should be able to get match payments without them going into the cap," O'Sullivan said.
"I couldn't even guess how many players it's forced out, but there is a number of them who still should be playing this game that aren't."
NRL CEO David Gallop last night defended the rule. "Incentive-based deals have an important place in the salary cap structure - they help clubs and players - but the money has to be counted somewhere otherwise they simply become a way of defeating the salary cap," he said.
"It's the player managers who actually arrange these deals and they know full well the advantages they have for their clients and the repercussions they may have for clubs the following year."
"A key factor in the excitement of this year's finals has been the effect the salary cap has had on the competition and it needs to be maintained.
"It is no use trying to blame the salary cap after the fact."
