NRL’s punishment for Cronulla and Wests Tigers draws a line against cheating

Unless they have compelling answers, Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan and Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe will both remain deregistered. And if nothing else, rugby league can be pleased that the system worked.

• Flanagan punishment could cripple Sharks
• Tigers to fight CEO ban
• Greenberg’s warning for future cheats

If nothing else, rugby league can be pleased that, in two instances, the system worked.

Unless they have compelling answers, the likes of which the NRL plainly does not expect to hear, Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan and Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe will both remain deregistered.

That would serve as a deterrent to everyone else in the sport who think they can get away with breaking the rules.

NRL CEO Todd Greenberg came down hard on both clubs. (AAP Image/Brendan Esposito)

Flanagan’s actions, in keeping in regular touch with those at the Sharks during his suspension in 2014, were a classic rugby league act in defiance of authority.

Flanagan thought, in the view of NRL Integrity Unit investigations, he could evade the regulations governing his nine-month ban which forbade his contact with officials and players.

From defiance of authority to this extent down to the weekly sight in games of players virtually daring referees to penalise them, it’s part of what makes the sport tick — and has for decades. League fancies its scallywag traits in the name of trying to get an advantage.

Too cute by half, Flanagan is poised for another suspension, another NRL coach sunk by his tendency to be a control freak.

Another year, another crisis for Cronulla. (Mark Evans/Getty Images)

The sense of grievance within Cronulla over the NRL’s investigations into use of peptides has been unmistakeable.

Too many at Cronulla thought they were badly done by, even if the icebreaking 2016 premiership leaves many to conclude they were well treated in winning a competition so close to a scarring scandal for the sport.

Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe didn’t see this one coming. (Brett Costello)

Pascoe has been deregistered due to an undisclosed ambassadorial role for Robbie Farah over four years, amounting to more than $600,000.

I know the market for Farah in Sydney has for years, for some reason, been more bullish than it ever existed on the rest of Planet Earth.

But quite why the Tigers would have seen the need to pay the hooker that sort of money only they would know.

Except, we can be sure, some of the Tigers thought they were a better than even money chance of escaping the detection of the NRL’s salary cap audits.

Any complaints behind the scenes from the Tigers, the likes of which we have heard before in previous disclosures of NRL salary cap violations, that they have not been the only club “gaming’’ the system deserve to fall on deaf ears.

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