Sunday, April 25, 2010

Between Gould Rantings And Gallop Reasoning

After listening to Gould do his nut on the Sunday Roast, I have concluded four things. That Brian Waldron is a cheating spin doctor of the highest order. That Gould, despite frothing at the mouth with spittle, put forth a very good argument. An argument which most fans would find it hard to disagree with. But, as usual with Gus, an argument that offers no solution. Gallop, when allowed to get a couple of words in between Gould diatribes, also presented a sound argument. The fact is that the clubs have all agreed to a salary cap. There is only one way to move forward both logically and legally, without scrapping/significantly raising the salary cap, to provide the compromise between the two arguments. A player draft. That keeps the NRL happy by distributing the talent evenly amongst the teams and also prevents a team, let's call them the Storm, who clearly have the best recruiting staff in the NRL, from accumulating a squad which down the track they are unable to legally keep together. Plus, it's simply a good idea. It works for the AFL. It works in the NBA where they even have a draft lottery, so tanking games doesn't guarantee you the first pick. I don't really know why the NRL has never even considered it. Perhaps it's time they did.

2 comments:

Tony.T said...

Didn't the NRL put the kibosh on a draft because of a players' threat to build a restraint of trade case?

The AFL have been living in dread of their players doing something along the same lines.

Master O said...

I just find it funny how anyone can play under a salary cap and still cry "restraint of trade" at the mention of a draft.

It is widely acknowledged that the AFL draft system is much fairer than that of the NSWRL in the early 90's, restricting the player for only the first two years, allowing him more bargaining power thereafter.

I'll also clarify that by draft, I mean strictly a draft for rookies such as in the NBA and NFL. It is the best way to attempt to eliminate the need to cheat by distributing the players of the future throughout the teams.

It's been some 20 years since the poorly conceived NSWRL draft was thrown out, but now, under the NRL, it seriously needs to be given consideration again with the current state of affairs.

All this being said, it probably won't happen. And the refs will still be shit. And we'll just keep going on and on with administrators cooking books and spastic refs...

Entertaining website you have there Tony T!