Twelve months ago, Melbourne Storm lifted the J.J. Giltinan Shiled as the NRL Premiers for 2009. We didn’t know at the time that they were systemically rorting the salary cap by the tune of $3.2 million. Subsequently they were stripped of their premiership (and others) which left other clubs, in particular their grand final opponents Parramatta lamenting on what could have been.
We would all hate to see this happen again this year.
There have only been two clubs that have been caught rorting the system, the Bulldogs 2002 and the Storm in 2010. But they were only caught due to an insider that blew the whistle. Even when the NRL were told of the Storm’s cheating, they only uncovered $1.7 million of the rort. It was left to Deloitte to uncover the other 80%.
Sure the NRL fines clubs every year for salary cap breaches – much of it due to interpretations of the cap, but the plain hard fact is that the NRL have never been able to detect a systematic rorting system through their own audits. After all, they went through the Storm’s books for the past five years and couldn’t find the $3.2 million rort.
So what does that all mean? Could there be another club out there that is rorting the salary cap? It would be naive to think that no other club have at least contemplated doing it. But we will never know because the NRL will never be able to catch them out.
When one speculates which club or clubs may be rorting the system, one only needs to look for the smoke which more than likely leads to fire. The Sydney Roosters are affectionately known by fans from other clubs as the “Rorters”. There are numerous stories of the brown paper bags used as player payments used at Bondi. Of course these are unsubstantiated rumours that cannot be proven. So let’s just stick with the facts.
The Roosters’ Board boast some of the most powerful businessmen in the country. They have the resources, business skills, impeccable connections and are proven winners. Some of them could fund the Roosters with their own money. It’s a powerful board that any club would be envious to have on their side. This of course does not imply that any of them have ever done anything illegal. Just that they are winners that know how to succeed in what they do.
So what do we look for in a club that rorts the system? Certainly we could look at unusually high standards of performance. The Roosters cannot be accused of that last year but that wasn’t an issue with their roster but with their coach. The Board did what they had to do – axe the coach even though he was a Rooster’s favourite son. The Board decided to replace Fittler with someone they considered to be the best coach, Brian Smith. The fact that he was under contract with another club and even recently extended it was apparently not an issue. The Roosters offer was too good for him to refuse and subsequently his contract with the Knights was terminated and he was free to join the Roosters.
If we are looking for unusual high performance than we need not look further than 2004 when the Roosters qualified for the Grand Final for the 4th time in 5 years. In the history of the NRL competition, there is only one been one other club that can claim anything like that record, and that was of course the Melbourne Storm who had made 4 Grand Finals in 4 years (but now we know how). This does not imply that there was anything illegal in that unusual high performance by the Roosters, but when an athlete wins a gold medal, they get tested.
The Roosters have an envious record of buying quality first grade players. That doesn’t prove anything but it’s interesting that they bought players like O’Meally, Miles, Anasta, Mason who were all from the Bulldogs premiership wining team and were ironically left the Bulldogs because they could no longer pay them what they used to before they were caught out for rorting the salary cap.
Anasta knocked back a lucrative offer from his juniors club Souths to join the Roosters. Recently the Cowboys looked to “throwing a chequebook” to get him but that won’t be enough to lure him away from the Roosters. The fact is the Roosters have never lost a player they really wanted to keep. In other words, they have never been outbid by any other club. Of course they let players go every year due to the salary cap, but so did the Storm.
Why did the teenage sensation Mitchell Peirce sign up with the Roosters rather than the club that he father had so proudly captained? Many sons have followed in their father’s footsteps and played for the same club – Dean Young, Brett Morris amongst many It could be that Peirce didn’t want to play in his father’s shadow. Fair enough. But certainly the Roosters must have made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
And so there we are. Absolutely no proof that the Roosters have done anything wrong. But much the same could have been said about the Storm 12 months ago.
