Paul Kent: Revealing NRL salaries is the key to making the cap count
The revelation that Jack Wighton could be the latest NRL star who takes less money to play for a glamour club exposes an integrity issue for the code, writes Paul Kent.
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The only way to make it fair, it seems, is for a law declaring the Rabbitohs must play Russell Crowe at five-eighth dressed as Moses, mumbling the 10 Commandments between plays, that the Panthers will have to attend charm school and the Roosters might have to drag around their wallets in their shorts.
The Broncos must be forced to push around shopping carts, given the cheaper cost of living in Brisbane, and all that, while Melbourne will have to come straight from the dojo and play in a karate gi.
Then, and only then, can the NRL begin to justify how the big clubs continue to recruit with some sort of impunity, picking the eyes out of the bottom teams, to remain the glamour clubs in the NRL, while the rest are there to help their for and against.
There seems to be only one way to succeed in the NRL and nobody wants to talk about it.
Just last month Mitch Moses knocked back an extra $600,000 or so, in total, from the Wests Tigers to stay at Parramatta. It was a typical NRL deal that brought no real heat to the conversation.
The reason why is everybody understood. Moses was happy at Parra and already well paid, and most acknowledge a player will happily stay for less than he could get on the market to stay where he is happy.
The Jack Wighton negotiations have turned it all upside down, though.
Earlier this week, might have been a Monday, Wighton sat down with Canberra officials and told them he was staying. The Raiders had come in at $1.1 million a season, for four years, which was legitimate enough for them to register with the NRL.
There it is, on the record.
By Wednesday it all turned upside down though, when Wighton told South Sydney he was heading their way.
Earlier in the day Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou said he’d love to have Wighton but he might have to convince a few of the well-paid players to take a pay cut to fit him in.
“If Cookie’s willing to take a pay cut, there’s probably something we can sit down and have a chat about,” he said.
“We’ll get all the big earners and see what they’re willing to do.
“We’d love to have him here if there was an opportunity to get him here but we’re pretty full on the salary cap as well.”
For Wighton to say yes, the Rabbitohs had to find the money.
The fall guys, apparently, were Liam Knight on $600,000 a year and Blake Taaffe nudging about $200,000 a year, say the spruikers. Both have solid contracts at the club, so the news will come in fresh.
Still, even over the four years Souths’ offer comes in at about $1 million less than the Canberra deal. That’s a hefty pay cut, even for the battlers in the NRL.
The Dolphins are believed to be somewhere in the middle.
This brings into play Raiders boss Don Furner’s decision to lodge their contract with the NRL to stop other clubs undercutting Canberra and later claiming the Raiders’ deal was never real.
Furner will wish Wighton nothing but the best if he accepts less to play at Souths or move to Redcliffe, but he will also insist that Wighton, if he leaves for less than the Raiders’ offer, goes into the salary cap at the market value.
There used to be a thing called notional value in the game. Now it is called a “reasonability check”.
NRL boss Andrew Abdo was adamant Friday the NRL’s salary cap auditors are all over club contracts and that wherever Wighton goes will be subject to a reasonability check, which takes into account things like the value of similar players, positions, rep standing, and all those subjective qualities.
No doubt Souths and the Dolphins are recruiting Wighton as a centre. Doubly so, for salary cap purposes.
Where the Raiders come unstuck is Wighton means more to them than he does to Souths and the Dolphins.
They will argue they are paying him centre money, where they intend to play him, while the Raiders are paying five-eighth money. The difference is a small two-bedder.
That said, the rival offers are probably doing Canberra a favour.
The trick to the cap is the same as always, which is value. It is part of the legitimate reason players will accept less to play at the successful clubs than they would at the top eight battlers.
Wighton showed just last week he is not a true five-eighth. Holding a 10-point lead with just a few minutes remaining, Wighton forgot the simple rule of the playmaker, which is that you can’t win a game twice.
At 20-10, and in possession, all the Raiders needed to do was make it harder for St George Illawarra to win, which meant kill the clock and maintain field position.
The professionals call it game management, realising another try couldn’t give them any more than the two competition points available so best to maintain position and possession.
Instead, Wighton went for it, pushing a pass, trying to win the game twice.
Tautau Moga intercepted and in a coach’s heartbeat the Dragons had a Hail Mary chance, at 20-14 with a minute to play, to win the game. They fell short by a metre or so.
A clever playmaker would never have given them the opportunity, which questions whether Wighton is a true five-eighth. He can be frantic at five-eighth.
Despite all this the Raiders believe Wighton is worth their offer to them, all considered.
And meanwhile the game suffers.
The hope is at some point the players will realise that the game’s integrity is more valuable than their own privacy when it comes to salary disclosure. Or that the NRL will force them to in the next round of collective bargaining negotiations.
Transparency is key to keeping faith with the fan.
The constant speculation damages the game. The NRL’s secrecy around contracts and how the salary cap works also contribute.
Fans rarely understand how a player can leave one club to be replaced by another, the salary cap implications of it, or why it might be a good deal for the club.
Those clubs, mostly those accused of operating under a “salary sombrero”, would not be ridiculed for simply being better at managing the cap.
Maligned players might even get some understanding from fans who would realise they are not being paid what they thought they were, or that they come for much less than the player they replaced.
Full disclosure would benefit far more than it would ever hurt.
* * * * *
NOT only does the NRL have a jiu jitsu problem, so does the AFL.
The sling tackle has caused confusion around the game as some players are charged, others are not, and a whole host of concussions have taken place as players are being flung to the ground head first.
Already eight players have been suspended this season for dangerous tackles. Others have narrowly avoided it.
It comes on the back of the NRL saying enough was enough with the latest jiu jitsu technique in the game, the hip drop tackle.
Both tackles have migrated from jiu jitsu.
Both codes claim the methods are not taught but pay no heed to the thought they might have morphed over as part of all their wrestling training.
The tell as far as the AFL is concerned, at least from a layman’s point of view, is the tackler locking the ball-handler’s free arm to his side which prevents him from getting his arm down to break his fall.
Similar tackles previously rarely did this, the tackler way back then wrapping him around the waist and the ball-carrier able to break his fall.
Locking the arm in, as the martial artists will tell you, gives greater control.
The problem the morons teaching the jiu jitsu don’t understand is that, unlike in their sport, there are foreign elements which make it harder for the opponent to protect himself that are not present in martial arts contests.
Namely, carrying a football, as well as the presence of other tacklers.
Jiu jitsu is a dirty word in the footy codes, but they are a cancer on the game.
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Originally published as Paul Kent: Revealing NRL salaries is the key to making the cap count
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