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Please, anyone else in 2021

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3,832
Playing for Canterbury Bankstown Jersey Flegg in 1978/79. Last time I ever played Rugby League. As a second rower, too small at 82 kg, hated tackling but you probably wouldn't catch me if I made a break.

Played against lots of future first graders and rep players. Oh the days of waking up next morning feeling like you've been run over by a Kenworth. Funtimes.
 

Colk

First Grade
Messages
6,750
Playing for Canterbury Bankstown Jersey Flegg in 1978/79. Last time I ever played Rugby League. As a second rower, too small at 82 kg, hated tackling but you probably wouldn't catch me if I made a break.

Played against lots of future first graders and rep players. Oh the days of waking up next morning feeling like you've been run over by a Kenworth. Funtimes.

Very light for a back rower mate. You didn’t ask the coach to chuck you out in the backs?
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,603
Partly true. Although having only a straight salary cap doesn’t help.

I am not in favour of a full on draft by any means (it wouldn’t happen in League anyway) but the one positive in that model is that it actually properly aligns fan expectations with where the team is at. The reason is that fans know that a) the club is not going well and they are not going to challenge this year or for the short term future but b.) they can see a way out. Thus we will be crap for the foreseeable future but we have a ton of juniors and the team should steadily improve. That also means that coaches and players get more time.

In the environment that we have it’s hard to align fans to a long term view because generally there is very seldom any major advantage in developing talent - for example there are no concessions in developing or playing a lot of young talent. Also besides Penrith, the main sides that have achieved success have been those that recruit.

The problem with that model is you pay overs to get them across.

Look at Storm, if they went to recruit Smith, Slater and Cronk. They pay overs and the cap is busted
 

Colk

First Grade
Messages
6,750
I am not necessarily sure what you do but a lot of other sports have something with a salary cap.

The problem with the current model is that there is simply a false equivalence. A good team can essentially get a top class player for a $100k or $200k less and with the salary cap being so high, it is not a significant enough difference for them to not choose success over more money. Back 20 years ago that was a significant difference in pay.

Also, it is not very transparent. Most times a team caught for breaking the salary cap hasn’t been caught by the NRL but because somebody from the inside has tipped them off. I find it hard to argue for a model that the NRL can’t effectively police themselves.
 
Messages
3,832
Very light for a back rower mate. You didn’t ask the coach to chuck you out in the backs?
Winger maybe? Quick enough.

Peter Moore was head honcho back then and threatened me and two teammates we'd sit out the season for our local club if we didn't appear at JF training. Total merkin. The other two were just benchwarmers for several games.
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,603
I am not necessarily sure what you do but a lot of other sports have something with a salary cap.

The problem with the current model is that there is simply a false equivalence. A good team can essentially get a top class player for a $100k or $200k less and with the salary cap being so high, it is not a significant enough difference for them to not choose success over more money. Back 20 years ago that was a significant difference in pay.

Also, it is not very transparent. Most times a team caught for breaking the salary cap hasn’t been caught by the NRL but because somebody from the inside has tipped them off. I find it hard to argue for a model that the NRL can’t effectively police themselves.

That happens in all sports.
Look at the buy out market in the NBA, Good teams get more stacked to try and win it
 

Colk

First Grade
Messages
6,750
Thinking about it, I would allow clubs to have 2 max contracts of $2 million p.a outside the salary cap (one back and one forward and maybe 2 if you develop them; if you purchased them elsewhere at least 50% goes on the salary cap) Salary cap could be $9.5 million.

The other way could be a salary cap on players purchased outside of the club. You can only allow a club to spend 25% of their cap on outside players or if that is too difficult, maybe a number of players.

The biggest problem with the competition is the division of talent with team’s spines - some clubs have 4 really good spine players (and sometimes others in the side who would also be very good spine players) whilst other clubs like the Tigers, Knights, the Warriors and the Dolphins next year have either got none or one at the very most. Having star players at every club would help drive interest and competitiveness in every game. It might also force teams to actually develop more if they see advantages in their cap by doing so.
 

Colk

First Grade
Messages
6,750
That happens in all sports.
Look at the buy out market in the NBA, Good teams get more stacked to try and win it

The NBA would arguably be more competitive than the NRL though. Also every team has a marketable star in that competition.

I couldn’t say that about a couple of the bottom teams in the NRL.
 

soc123_au

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
19,867
Didn’t Penrith sign onto SL without telling Freddy who was deadset against it? Can a Pennies fan shed light on this please?
Pretty much this. Freddy was going nowhere until we jumped on the Super League train. He had only recently become Kangaroos captain and the threat of that being taken away made his position at Penrith untenable. Gus being at the Chooks made it the obvious destination.

The word was he had a meeting with Gus and Uncle Nick prior to all that going down, it was made clear to Politis that Freddy was staying where he was, but he still wanted to pick the brain of a gun player to see what they needed to do to recruit more effectively and get rid of the transit lounge tag. How much of that is true or just revisionist history I really dont know.

The irony about that is there is a narrative that persists to this day by a lot of Penrith fans that we continuously raid their club. Since Freddy, the only established first grader I can think that we signed from Penrith is Jennings and he got sacked by the panthers. I think young May is our only Penrith junior currently in the first grade squad.
I think that myth was born by the horror of losing Freddy and then escalated when you bought Kingswood Bowling Club. It was believed at the time it was you guys buying your way into the area to steal juniors. I actually went through a list of every player that played 1st grade for the Roosters since the mid 70's about 2 years ago, from memory there would have been 6 or 7 players in the whole list that had previously played 1st grade at Penrith. Freddy and Sing were the standouts followed by Amos Roberts who was a one year import for us anyway. There is probably a few I missed that played lower grades for us that you got early, but imo the myth is definitely busted.
 

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