Paul Kent: NRL standing down Jack de Belin has punished the entire St George Illawarra club
The NRL’s decision to stand down star St George Illawarra prop Jack de Belin while he faces rape charges has had far reaching, and unfair, consequences for his club.
NRL
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ST George Illawarra’s season started on Tuesday night when coach Paul McGregor named his team and ends on Sunday when the same team finally runs out.
Jack de Belin’s loss for a second straight season will cost the Dragons any chance to make the finals. It will undoubtedly have Dragons fans baying for McGregor’s AB-positive by round three. And only if they are patient.
De Belin is a $600,000-a-year player. His absence in the roster, that cannot be filled with like for like, puts the Dragons at such a disadvantage brings a sharp focus to the NRL’s no fault stand down policy and the catastrophic effects it has on clubs.
It is hard to believe the NRL has considered anything like this was possible when de Belin was originally stood down.
One full season was tolerable. Two is a disaster.
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De Belin was charged with a serious criminal offences to which he has pleaded not guilty and the NRL, after a damaging 2018-19 summer estimated to have cost the game tens of millions of dollars in lost sponsorship, subjected him to a new no-fault stand down policy.
The new rule was a complete reversal of the innocent until proven guilty stance that allowed players to continue playing until their day in court. Both systems, designed to take the discretion out of decisions, and thereby make them fairer, are flawed.
The NRL appears to have acknowledged this in recent weeks.
NRL boss Todd Greenberg has relaxed the hard line stance that came under heavy criticism last season and recently allowed Curtis Scott to play Gold Coast on Saturday despite facing six charges, including kicking and assaulting police, and then on Monday cleared Maika Sivo to play Canterbury on Thursday despite a sexual assault charge. Both have denied wrongdoing.
Charges of equal severity last season saw players stood down until their court hearings.
De Belin has been allowed no such discretion but look what it has done to the Dragons.
Patrick Kaufusi was recruited last season to replace de Belin and, while he did his honest best, is a long way from providing de Belin’s impact.
This inability to replace the stood down player, though, seriously damages the Dragons and will become a greater problem for the code.
Salary caps are often misunderstood. By their nature they are designed to level talent.
An easy way to understand how heavily they impact performance is to take a look at other clubs under cap duress in recent seasons.
After Cronulla got busted cheating the cap in 2018 the NRL deemed it serious enough to reduce the Sharks’ cap by $700,000. They also know the punishment was prohibitive enough to split it over two seasons.
Manly has just come off a two-year stint where their own salary cap cheating saw the NRL sting them with $330,000 off the cap for both 2018 and 2019 seasons.
Both clubs have previously pointed to the penalties to explain their moderate success.
De Belin is paid $600,000 and Kaufusi was brought in for $110,000, which was all they had left to pay once the pro rata rate was applied.
Part of the blame there has to be worn by the Dragons. Privately owned, there was a reluctance at management level to spend the money. It came from the budget.
Regardless, it left a $490,000 hole in the cap. From another angle, the Dragons were penalised well above what Cronulla and Manly were penalised in any one season.
Now the Dragons are about to double down their pain.
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No moves were made to fill the hole this season because the Dragons thought de Belin would face trial in February and, if not guilty, be free to play in March.
But legal argument has delayed the court case until a hearing next month after which it is hoped his trial will start in November.
De Belin won’t even have a job then, with his Dragons contract ending October 31.
Parramatta and Gold Coast have offered players to the Dragons this season but the sting in the tail is the deal means carrying the players next season as well, which soured the deal.
The Dragons have been unfairly penalised for an incident beyond their control, involving one player.
For an unproven offence, the NRL’s stand down policy has not only affected de Belin but every Dragons player.
Much of the argument around the NRL’s no-fault stand down policy has been over the fairness or unfairness to the player.
But what about the club? And his teammates?
Originally published as Paul Kent: NRL standing down Jack de Belin has punished the entire St George Illawarra club