It's out in the cold
By PAUL KENT Rugby League Writer
December 14, 2004
THE NRL's radical new territorial draft is doomed to failure despite saving clubs about $8 million a year.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal today the blueprint for the new territories which the NRL was hoping to keep confidential until further discussion could be held.
While many clubs are comfortable with the areas they have been allocated, most keeping the country area they are already closely linked to, there is enough opposition to see the draft failing to get up.
The draft will fail on several levels:
* The Broncos will object to Brisbane being divided up among Sydney clubs and also at being locked out of the Sunshine Coast. The Broncos believe this will affect their identity within the city.
* The Cowboys will object to losing the vital Central Queensland feeder area and also the loss of its Queensland State Cup competition.
* Melbourne will seek an added $1million to compensate for the relocation of players to Melbourne, a request that will be denied.
"It doesn't suit Queensland fullstop," ARL chief executive Geoff Carr said.
The territorial draft was designed to sit with an elite under-20 competition, similar to what the AFL operates.
An external draft had been considered -- but expected opposition from the Rugby League Professionals Association eliminates that option.
"Fifteen clubs have to agree to it to get off the ground and not all the clubs are excited," Carr said.
"Brisbane feel as if it is not really fair to them."
The great benefit for the NRL clubs would be their savings under the draft, especially considering the poker-machine tax.
More than $11m was spent on junior recruitment last season -- money spent outside each club's top 25 players.
The massive cost was generated because some clubs stockpiled talent.
Players as young as 14 are being signed by clubs, basically to prevent them from signing with rival clubs.
Many of those players are then being relocated to Sydney, Brisbane or wherever they have signed as early as the age of 16, stripping their own local league of developing talent with still no guarantee that they will succeed.
In fact, the attrition rate is so high several clubs estimated that only 15-20 per cent of those players ever saw first grade.
Under the territorial draft clubs would have to wait until players are 18 before they could sign them.
The clubs would have first rights on five players from within their allocated region before other clubs could move in.
At a base salary of $37,500 per season, this would be expected to cost the NRL clubs about $2.8million -- far below the $11m already spent.
Broncos chief executive Bruno Cullen, while acknowledging he was looking after Brisbane's interests, said the city would suffer if the investment the Broncos put into junior development was refined to only certain areas.
Souths chief executive Shane Richardson favours an external draft in conjunction with an elite state league, saying the State Government's poker-machine tax will impact heavily on the territorial draft.
"There is going to be a financial hole when the poker-machine tax comes in and the first area you are going to look at saving costs is the development where you don't really need to do it," Richardson said.
"We should be planning now for it."
NRL chief executive David Gallop said last night: "It was the clubs that asked us to complete this exercise.
"We've done that at their request and it is still very much a discussion phase document."
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1264&storyid=2380517
