I'm all about doing what's best for our game, whether if my point of view agrees to a certain extent with Phil Gould or whether that be Mahatma Cote, I really don't care. Many in here bag Gould for playing the man and not the issue, I think the same people do a similar thing when they criticise Gould for his thoughts on the Salary Cap as many of his points make clear sense.
There are many issues that are concerning for the game, but since the Storm saga, these issues relating to the Salary Cap have become pertinent to assist in preventing a situation where the game has to severely mutilate itself to cut out a cancer.
In that context here are three main issues which I believe are are imperitive for our game to either continue doing, or to start thinking about doing and in a hurry.
- We need to start to help our great game be in a position to keep our champions, this obviously relates to increased player payments for elite players. We need to keep our stars, our kids love them, the Gasniers, Lote's and the Sailors should have never left for the reasons they did. We have to as a game find a way to fix this issue. Whether that be through a 1 or 2 player per club Marquee (non counted salary) deal I don't really know what is best but something needs to be done.
- to raise the minimum player wage to at least $70K. If we raise the cap, we should also raise the minimum wage, so instead of the top flight talent scoring all the reward from a salary cap rise, the players on the lowest payments (which are about 60% of our current total NRL playing talent) need to be supported properly. These guys are young men from predominately working class backgrounds, and some from a young age have families. This is something a strong RLPA should be fighting hard for.
- to reward one club type players who have been developed by forward thinking development type club, thus encouraging all clubs to develop and invest in players from a young age. Perhaps if we have a rule in the cap that has a player who's been at a club for 10 years from debut and has only ever played first grade at that club, then when he reaches the age of 28 years old his salary should be counted only as 50% of his wage and when he turns 30 years old his salary shouldn't be counted within the cap at all. I think something like this has untold benefits, the biggest is keeping seniority at the clubs, seniority that assists the development of young players both on and off the field.
The Salary Cap in it's current form is not helping the the game and it is forcing both the champion players and the peripheral players out of our NRL competition way before their time, thus weakening the quality and depth of our competition. The Salary Cap is a necessity, but in its current form it is archaic.
