NRL showed it can keep a secret with three-month investigation of alleged Cronulla Sharks salary cap breach
NEGOTIATIONS to get the proposed Kangaroos v Tonga clash over the line have finally paid off - but not for Aussie players who will see their match fees slashed so Tonga’s stars can be fairly compensated as well.
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NOT even the ARL Commission was aware of the three-month investigation into Cronulla’s alleged salary cap rorting.
Along with the Integrity Unit, only NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg and chief operating officer Nick Weeks knew inside League Central.
They chose not to alert the Commission until they had more to report.
The investigation was regarded as top secret within the NRL corridors, which has raised quiet concerns around the game given the integrity issue at stake.
Neither Greenberg nor Weeks’s integrity is up for question, with Weeks recently arguing for more funding for the Integrity Unit given he knew what they were investigating.
Obviously the commission is now completely aware and is expecting a full update when it next meets.
WHO RULES THE SHIRE?
JOSH Dugan seems to have free reign at Cronulla.
Dugan’s appearance on the recent podcast was quietly let slip by the club, who deemed no action was necessary beyond a warning letter despite the copious use of four-letter words throughout the podcast.
We should not have been surprised.
Dugan was required to talk to sponsors at a club function before a recent home game he missed through injury... but failed to turn up.
He escaped disciplinary action.
SHARKS BUSINESS ON THE SLIDE
CRONULLA’S property deal was supposed to see the club transform itself from perennial battlers to one of the richest sporting club’s in Australia.
But something has gone amiss.
Delays in building stages, including the all-important retail sectors, mean the leagues club and football club losses again leave the club cash-strapped.
The football club is on track to replicate the $4 million loss of last season this year — even with the NRL pitching in $13 million.
Serious questions have to be asked of the former administration.
NODDY BACK IN SHARKLAND
HE is a member of the Cronulla Sharks’ team of the half century.
Now former star halfback and skipper Brett “Noddy” Kimmorley has been drafted in to help the Sharks with their 2018 NRL premiership quest.
Kimmorley works with Cronulla’s kickers a couple of times a week, which he balances with his family and media commitments.
He joined head coach Shane Flanagan’s staff earlier this year, having spent time assisting coaching at the Canterbury Bulldogs, Canberra Raiders and the Wests Tigers in recent seasons, as well as a very successful stint in the Illawarra league with the Wests Red Devils.
SCOMO FEELS SHARKS BITE
GEE it’s hard to cop a break in Australian politics.
Soon after our brand new Prime Minister Scott Morrison was sworn in, and while still being widely celebrated as a man of the people — a mad Cronulla Sharks fan wouldn’t you know! — the salary cap storm broke around the Sharks.
HEIGHTO’S CLOSE CALL
CHRIS Heighington is probably the only person who has tipped a beer on Paul Sironen’s head and lived to tell the story.
Legend has it Heighington was so, how shall we put it, caught up in the Tigers’ 2005 grand final win, that the highly excited Tigers forward poured a beer on Sironen’s head.
Sironen had dished out punishment for less during his decorated playing career.
So ahead of Heighington’s final game we thought we’d let Sironen finally return serve.
“I was a director of the club,” Sironen laughed. “He thought he may have been in a bit of trouble — that’s what the players were telling him.
“It was all a bit of a gee up. They wound him up pretty well. The good thing was I’d had more drinks than Chris had in the celebration so we let it go through the keeper. It was all good.
“Mark O’Neill was the one geeing him up. I caught up with him a few months later to have lunch.
“He was a little bit sheepish until we all started laughing. It was all good.
“He got carried away winning grand final, there certainly wasn’t any malice. He was just caught up in the excitement of things. It wasn’t too much — only a couple of drops. But the boys told him it was a full stubbie.”
ROOS TONGA SACRIFICE
THE Tonga versus Australia Test has been finally been given the green light.
The Kangaroos are so keen to pit themselves against the new international force Australian players have agreed to a $15,000 pay-cut to play.
Australian players will pocket $20,000 when they face New Zealand on October 13, but will earn about $5000 — the same as the Tongan players — a week later.
While the mid-season Test in Denver is almost certain to be scrapped, there are plans for Tonga to play New Zealand during next year’s representative weekend.
NRL DIGITAL BOSS QUITS
LESS than a year into the NRL’s new broadcast deal — where a massive $30 million is being invested each year in their digital department as part of a future plan to challenge Channel 9 and Fox Sports — the NRL’s chief digital officer Rebekah Horne has quit.
Many around the game, particularly within clubland where the decision to outlay so much money as a direct competitor to the organisations that effectively fund the department is fiercely debated, have questioned why she left so early in her tenure.
EYES ON THE PIES
THE Legend of League tournament is supposed to pit some old foes together for a semi-serious return to the field.
But you can’t discount the competitive streak of some of the game’s ex- greats.
Word has it one player who will be lacing up the boots again was eyeing off a meat pie in the press box recently, only to be scorned by a teammate.
ELIAS AND THOMAS BURY THE HATCHET
EVERY now and then it is nice to see past the warring tribes of rugby league and see the greater good the game can do.
Benny Elias and Joe Thomas went at each other during their playing careers. In the time-honoured fashion, they swapped jerseys after the 1988 grand final.
Elias has come on board to help Thomas raise money, through the Men of League Foundation, for drought-afflicted farmers.
“We don’t want to raise money, we want to give money,” Elias said. “The thing about rugby league is we all shoulder up when we are in need.”
Already Tooheys — “Here we go again, Manly and Parra …” — has donated $100,000.
Buses are being organised to head to all corners of the drought the week after the grand final and raise money in the towns which are doing it tough.
Alongside Elias and Thomas are Mick Cronin, Tim Brasher, Andrew Farrar, Paul Langmack, David Gillespie, Nobby Clarke and Darryl Brohman.
Any former NRL player is welcome to join. Contact Jess McCartney at wellbeing@menof-league.com.
THE REST...
-ROOSTERS supremo Nick Politis finally landed in Austin, Texas, where he will attend the wedding of the son of Canterbury Leagues Club boss George Peponis. Politis was on the Qantas flight that got turned around on Tuesday when a faulty door seal caused a “noise issue”.
-THERE was an interesting moment during the Roosters’ loss to Brisbane last Saturday. Injured prop Jared Waerea-Hargraves was standing in the Allianz Stadium tunnel watching play unfold. Suddenly he was told to get on the end of a walkie-talkie and listen to a message from coach Trent Robinson. Waerea-Hargraves proceeded to walk up the tunnel where he spent a few minutes, before returning with the sin-binned Latrell Mitchell following a short-time later.
-IN a nice touch, late Bulldogs legend Steve Folkes was honoured at his old high school, Punchbowl Boys, when its blue sports house was renamed Folkes. Canterbury club boss, Folkes’s sister-in-law Lynne Anderson and two Bulldogs players were at the ceremony.
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Originally published as NRL showed it can keep a secret with three-month investigation of alleged Cronulla Sharks salary cap breach
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