If ya can't beat 'em....?

[Misty Bee]

Join 'em. Yeah?

I'm talking about 'pushing the envelope' to gain premiership advantage.

2002 - Canterbury went all out to buy a comp. Come hell or high water, they had the $$$, and they were gunna spend it. And they did. And they got caught a nd rightfully lost 37 competition points.


1999 - Melbourne went over the cap and won the premiership

1995 - Canterbury failed to declare Rod Silva's signature in their official salary to the ARL

1989-90 - Canberra breach the salary cap to win the comp.

Others, such as Newcastle and Brisbane, have pushed the envelope without reason in recent years.

The question I thus pose here is this: Should Parramatta also be 'tactically competetive' in winning the comp? How far shuold we go?

I believe that we should be pushing the envelope. Going into that grey area that Easts, Melbourne, Brisbane and Newcastle live in would hopefully give us some much needed edge.

HJ has stated that he would rather Parra come last year after year than see us in that position. There is a lot of merit to that stance.

Colonel Eel responded that he would rather not have parra than see us run last year in, year out. I am inclined to agree -this club deserves better than to becoma Souths like farce.

So, if that is the case - the rules must be bent to play the game - what do you think we should do? Is it a case of 'when in Rome'? Or should we be willing to be the one club that doesn't cheat, and doesn't win?

 

[Pazza]

If parra cheated in winning a competition i would have serious doubts about supporting the club from that point on

 

[Misty Bee]

Doesn't it depend on the level of cheating?

 

[Ron Jeremy]

Doesn't it depend on the level of cheating?

Exactly!!....as long as it's to a certain extent not over the top!!

The Nrl will just fine them a sum but??....the fringe benefits of wining a GF will far exceed a fine from the NRL!

Only down fall you will offically become known as a rorter and be in elaborate company with the Roosters & the masters of cheat....the Bulldogs!!

 

[Pazza]

Cheating no matter how minor is a huge no no in my books!

 

[Hollywood Jesus]

Disgusting, and not surprising really.....

 

[half]

one of the things i have constantly appreciated about parra is even when we're down, we're still a class act. i would rather lose every single game in a season than resort to cheating. but in saying that, i would rather win honestly most of all. and we can do that. i just can't see how people can be satisfied with winning if they cheated their way to the top

i think to suggest we need to cheat to win is a slap in the face to hindy, lyon and all our other stars that could very well win us a grand final

 

[MR GEORGE]

win at all costs i like it.

 

[Twizzle]

This is an extremely complex argument.

Cheating alot or cheating a little, is still cheating.

Many of us were critical of the dogs and are pointing the bone at the chooks, yet now we are asking ourselves, do we want to join them ?

How would we all handle the criticism, if the bone was pointed at us ?

Could we defend Fitzy and Co at the game or at the pub or on a forum ?

The taste of victory would not be sweet, if we had to cheat.

If Parra got caught and stripped of its points, a la dogs, we would all want Fitzy's scalp (as well as other parts of his anatomy).

We are not going to come last and cannot be compared to the bunnies, if we do not cheat, as the bunnies have just re-entererd the NRL and have some building to do.

Cheating would cause demolotion.

What makes it more complex, is that the so called "slap in the face to Lyon and Hindy", is part of the cause.

If Lyon and Hindy (and Caylo) did not demand so much of our salary cap, we would be able to afford more quality players, or at least hang on to more of our juniors, and perhaps we would not be having this discussion.

After weighing up the pros and cons.............I like the Eels the way they are.

 

[The Colonel]

Again..... I would rather Parramatta be out of the comp then see them cheat to whatever extent.

Souths were pushing very close to the edge with salaries when they set about signing a few players at the end of last year hence the need to cut them. They finished where with all the money they spent?

The salary cap puts us at a disadvantage with our juniors. We have the best junior competition in the competition bar none. People know the coaching that goes into our players and many like Hindmarsh, Cayless, Lyon and so on will be ten year players in the not too distant future and we will likely receive a discount for them.

The sooner the NRL takes a similar stance for juniors developed within the club we will see more and more that will stay. That and a draft system would see clubs playing on an equal basis rather then living in the grey area.

 

[parra_princess]

F*** CHEATING! [-X

When we win the comp, I wan't no excuses from the opposition (ie "They were over the cap, thats why they won") No way. If we're gonna do it, do it properly win fair and square!

 

[PB]

I agree with PP.

Part of celebrating a premiership season is week in week out turning up to school/work/footy etc, and giving it to your mates who support other clubs becuase yours is winning. I dont want them to have an out, or excuse.

I hate cheating. Ask yourself this question......;

If you play for a sporting team (hypothetically or otherwise) and your coach decided to play an unqualified or unregistered player in order to win a game, would you go along? A tough question as most of us here are filled with the same sort of desire to win and loyalty to our various sporting alegances.

i would'nt play i'd gain no satisfaction from winning like that. simiarly i'd gain little satisfaction from parra winning by breaking the rules deliberatly.

 

[Freak]

To be perfectly honest, I would suggest that every club is already cheating the Salary Cap in some shape or form. Back on RLeague I attempted to guestimate our top 25 wages and keep it under $3.25 mil.
It wasn't easy!! Unfortunately the Cap, the way it is structured currently is open for punishment. The best example of this is Walker playing for $45,000 a season with the Chooks. Is he a $45,000 a year player? So this being the case is the cap currently doing what it is supposed to do? My question is what and how else is he getting paid??? Policing of player "TOTAL"payments are simply not strictly possible.
For example; I could be a long lost cousin of Hindmarsh, working down at the Leagues club earning an additional $25,000 a year above what I should. How is the NRL going to pick this up???
Until the cap is changed to a points system per player based on experience, then we will never have a level playing field in the NRL.

So I guess cheating is not Yes or No it is how much!

 

[PB]

Freak is on the right track. The dogs just did it so obviously that it was easy to pick up (paying the chairman's son $200,000 to change light bulbs in the club or what ever).

but to me it is not so much about how much (cheating is cheating). To me it is also about intent. You can think what your doing is within the rules, but it may not be. you can mis calculatre and be over, which is wrong but not deliberate. but if you know what you are doing and deliberatly go on to break the rules, you should be punished big time (bigger than what the dogs got).

But again intent can be hard to proove.

 

[Freak]

That's exactly my point PB.
Intent is hard to prove and for that reason the clubs that are cheating intentionally can always claim ignorance and play dumb.

A point system is the only way to go!! and should be seen as the games number 1 priority.

 

[bartman]

Nah...

No excuses, no innuendo. If we are going to win it, it should be as fair and as legal as possible.

Sure, each club looks at the rules and sees how far they can "bend" them, but as long as that's legal that's accepted as OK. Intentionally going out to "break" the rules to win the comp is not on, and the Bulldogs rightfully got slammed for it.

Only one team out of 15 can win the comp in any year. The odds these days are against the expectation that your team (any team) can legally build for a string of grand final wins. Our aim should be to always be competitive, to have a chance at winning the GF, through finishing top 8/top 4.

That's achievable for a club year in year out (legally), and we have the resources to do it without cheating.

 

[JessEel]

nup, no cheating, that would be it for me, C U BYE parra!
although, if they who did the cheating, IE: fitzy and the rest of the corporate box type officials we have, were then sacked bulldogs style, i may reconsider..... ;-) :lol:

 

[slippery eel]

About time this topic was mentioned!. Ppl at my work have said that Parra are chokers and my response is that we have never cheated the cap. Its the most talked about thing in league these days. Look at Melbourne 99, Brisbane 00, Newcastle 01, Roosters 02. All clubs were fined at the start of the year for being over the cap!. Parra havent been over the cap since 93 & 94 when they were hopeless!. I think you'll find that the Roosters of 02 & 03 are way over than ppl really think.

Also the Broncos of 92 & 93 were over. Manly in the mid 90's were finding loopholes by giving their players houses and cars which weren't included as salary to players. Its been going on for the past 10 years more so than ppl think.

Look at the Roosters - Walker for $40,000!. ppfftt.

Cheating is part of the game usually done by scum bag clubs who have won premierships. Parra obided by the rules by letting Dymock and Smith go at the end of 2000.

 

[Haynzy]

Are we implying here that only cheats win ?

Are Penrith under suspicion of cheating to win this year.

My feeling is that it is possible to win without breaking/bending the rules. Alot of that depends on luck of the draw, injuries etc.

If The Rooters cheated this year it didn't help them.
We don't believe that Parra cheated in 2001. Newcastle didn't win that Grand Final, Parra lost it. Would our players have played better if they were getting paid more under the table?

I don't think so.

Yes I think there needs to be some changes made to the salary cap system. Teams should be rewarded for their juniours and players should be rewarded for their loyalty.
The problem is that not all of the teams have the same earning capacity.

Last year or the year before, I suggested that rep players should be paid the extra money that they deserve from the ARL and not their respective clubs. The clubs shouldn't be penalised because their players have gained rep positions. Players should have a set wage relative to their experience at their club, ie Senior wage, Normal wage, Rookie wage and maybe junior or fringe player wage. Or maybe 10 year, 7 year, 5year, 3 year, 1 year wages kinda like award wages I guess.
Unfortunately it would too hard to change things so drastically and the players would probably revolt.

I hope Parra never resort to cheating because I believe that they can win it fair and square.

 

[Suitman]

This is a great question posed to us by Misty.
Sadly, and no matter what, I could not bring myself to be satisfied if Parramatta ever won a comp and then were fined for breaching the salary cap....no matter how little we had breached it.
Its just not cricket - as the saying goes.

But this makes me ponder the bigger question :arrow:

"Should there be a salary cap at all"?????

I have always been a firm believer that the strong survive and the weak just fade away.
It annoys me that clubs like Souths and the Wests Tigers seem to operate in a less than inglorious way, but the rules are made to prop them up.
If the Roosters, Broncos etc run their clubs professionally and are successful, (as we were in 2001) why should they (we) be penalised by that success to support clubs that couldn't run a chook raffle.

Promotion and relegation is the only way to go. It would make the weaker clubs pull their fingers out to ensure they survived to play every season in the BIG league with the big clubs. If not, someone else would take thier place.
Then, even the clubs at the bottom of the competition would have something to strive for.

To me, it is the perfect compromise.

Suity