To Nick Politis, Phil Gould and whoever else it may concern,
Hi, my name is Mark Peterson and im gonna start off by saying I HATE your club. Just so theres no confusion as to my intentions with this letter, and so you know where its heading, ok? Good.
No matter how much I detest your club, I always was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt
I was prepared to give Brad Fittler and Craig Wing ubiquitous praise for their high level of skill, and the way your team has revolutionised the game in the last two years is a credit to your organization. By the sounds of all this praise it sounds like Im a roosters fan, well boys I got news for you. Im not.
The year was 1996. I was a roosters fan back then, that was until I found a team with heart and passion in my native Newcastle. A Team full of fighters, not a bunch of spineless imports that your team has become. A team that makes hard decisions for the good of the game. Do I see your organization doing whats best for the game? No. I see your team putting the game that I love with all my heart and soul on the front of the Sunday Telegraph in a blaze of gunfire and ammuntion the likes of which havent been seen since the super league era, all because you cant hang onto your precious imports. Imports like Craig Fitzgibbon and Brad Fittler. Imports like Justin Hodges and Chris Walker. You dont like the rules that everybody else is starting to come to grips with so you choose to change them to suit your own selfish needs. Never mind the fact that players like Scott Sattler and Matthew Johns have to give up clubs that mean the world to them in order to make the game fairer.
Take the Matthew Johns situation
.. There were near riots in Newcastle when Matty was unceremoniously shown the door at the end of the 2000 season, but we didnt threaten legal action. We didnt threaten to bring down the entire game because we were unhappy with the rules. We got on with it. And we won the comp.
Now, two years down the track we see the fruits of our talent all around the league. Two examples of this is potentally the best young centre in the game, Paul Franze
. Is he a Knight? No hes a shark. While we would have loved to hang onto such an explosive talent like that, the salary cap dictated that in order to kick start his career he had to go play for someone else. Therefore, the salary cap works
If there was no salary cap the Tigers wouldnt be able to afford good young kids like Benji Marshall because he would be sold off at a ridiculous amount of money to a club like, oh, say, the Sydney Roosters
. If you want players you have to sacrifice something
. The knights sacrificed Franze, Bird, Ryder, Ale, Toupou and Jobson so we could keep Joey
.. you think we couldnt have gone to court and argued that the cap was unfair? A host of good young talents were sacrificed for the good of the game. Because thats what this is.
Basically what im saying Nick, Phil, Ricky, hell whoever is running the circus over there at Bondi is grow the f**k up. You dont like the rules. Too bad. The rules are in place so we have order and a game to play in Fifty years, not a game thats dead in five
Think about it.
By the way, I still hate you, you still suck
Cheers
Parki
