Monday Buzz: NRL lurches from one crisis to the next as penalties, off-field issues reach boiling point

TODD Greenberg will be thanking his lucky stars for the cricket scandal, as the many failings of the NRL are being hidden from the spotlight.

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THERE has been only one winner from cricket’s ball-tampering scandal … and that is rugby league.

If it wasn’t for our cricket cheats dominating the news cycle for the last seven days, the ineptitude of NRL CEO Todd Greenberg would surely have been plastered over the back pages.

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Where do we start …

* Banning the Cronulla Sharks and the South Sydney Rabbitohs from the elite women’s competition despite their impressive applications for inclusion.

* The Manly Sea Eagles salary cap fiasco where the club is caught handing out $1.5 million in undisclosed player payments over three years but their ‘penalty’ is actually a $160,000 bonus.

* The follow-up smear campaign on rugby league immortal Bob Fulton.

* The scheduling embarrassment where our Storm v Cowboys grand final replay was played in front of 12,000 people on a Thursday night in Melbourne against the AFL season kick-off with 90,000 next door at the MCG.

The NRL is beset by problems on and off the field.

We could fill an eight-page liftout.

And that’s before we even start on the refereeing penalty crackdown that has turned the game into a stop/start almost unwatchable sport.

It is a totally excessive, narky, nitpicking exercise that has destroyed the game as a spectacle.

Fast, free-flowing attacking football is now almost non-existent.

On Friday night your columnist walked out of Shark Park feeling cheated.

Sure, the Sharks won and held arch rivals Melbourne Storm try-less.

They played strong, tough and courageous without Josh Dugan and Matt Moylan to get the two points.

But, seriously, who wants to watch 33 penalties in a game of football or 57 when you add the earlier game, the Rabbitohs against the Bulldogs.

In Storm v Sharks there was one penalty every two minutes and 40 seconds in what should have been one of the highlight games of the season.

The penalty crackdown has turned the game into a farce.

A 2016 grand final replay between two teams that can’t stand each other.

Instead it was absolutely painful to watch.

Coaches are already awake to the fact you can still win while giving away penalties.

The Panthers lost the penalties 13-8 against the Cowboys but won 33-14.

Souths lost the penalties 11-4 but flogged Manly 34-6.

The Broncos lost the penalties 9-7 against the Wests Tigers but won. They also lost the penalties 11-5 against the Cowboys but won.

The Tigers lost the penalties 18-8 but beat premiers Melbourne Storm.

The Knights lost the penalties 12-7 but beat the Canberra Raiders.

Again in round one. The Warriors lost the penalties 11-7 but flogged the Rabbitohs.

And Melbourne Storm lost the penalties 9-4 against the Bulldogs but won 36-18.

There’s one thing I want to make perfectly clear — this column is not about bagging the referees.

Were it not for the cricket scandal, league’s failings would be big news.

They are only doing what they were ordered to do.

Greenberg has admitted it is his edict and is responsible for this debacle.

There was nothing wrong with rugby league last year.

Sure, the play the balls have been untidy and needed cleaning up.

But they’ve gone way too far.

The 50/50 penalties and infringements are now being called 100 per cent of the time.

Why not do the entire rule book?

Let’s penalise voluntary tackles and incorrect scrum feeds while we’re at it.

You could find 100 penalties in every game if you really wanted to.

It is also the inconsistency that is driving the punters mad.

Why are we penalising teams for being off-side at either end of the field but not in the 80 metres in between?

Why are some incorrect play the balls being pinged and others not.

It’s very easy to blame the players and the coaches.

But rugby league is in the entertainment business where attendance figures and television ratings are the key performance indicators.

We’ve put up with this rubbish for a month now.

And we were told it would only effect the first few weeks.

It’s Greenberg’s responsibility to fix it. The narky, pig-headed approach has failed.