Anyone as old as this blogger will remember the beginning of the Rugby League Wars between “Super League” and the “ARL,” with the impact that this had on the game they love, still being felt this day.
At a time when League is making mince-meat of the other “rugby” code, with the looming battle with the “AFL” in League’s heartland, is Rugby League on the precipice of a drama that will blow the game apart?
This is on top of the talk of Rugby Union, and even the AFL, trying to lure away elite NRL stars with big money contracts, with the talk of Jonathan Thurston, Greg Inglis, Israel Folau, all being offered a handsome reward for their defection.
In light of all this, and in the context of the Melbourne Storm “Rort,” the following words are prescient…
Sources close to Waldron said he is determined not to let powerful interests use him as a scapegoat for a payment system he says was corrupted well before he joined Melbourne Storm (from AFL club St Kilda) in 2005.
One well-placed source said Waldron had named News Ltd executives and NRL executives as being aware of claims of widespread salary cap cheating for years. Waldron believed News Ltd – the owner of Melbourne Storm – and the NRL have vested interests in deflecting attention from suggestions they knew about systemic pay cheating.
Waldron has told several people he warned the NRL chief, David Gallop, three years ago that systemic salary rorting was ”a cancer” that affected every NRL club except Canberra, which was too broke to pay players more than it should. But he said Gallop had ignored the warning and never raised the matter with him again.
You can read the full account of this article… HERE!
Before you rightfully point out that this is the typical response of the guilty, and question why the NRL would slit its own throat, if they were indeed involved, read these words from John Lomax…
Read these words by former Storm and NRL front-rower, John Lomax,
Former Melbourne prop Johnny Lomax has joined the chorus of those suggesting the Storm are far from the only NRL team stretching the salary cap.
Lomax, a former Kiwi who now coaches Wellington club Wainuiomata, was stunned when news of the Storm scandal broke last week.
While disappointed in the actions of club management, Lomax stood by the players and said there had always been whispers regarding illegal payments, dating back to his playing days in the 1990s.
“They’re just one of the franchises that’s been caught, that’s what I’m suggesting,” Lomax said.
“It was the same scenario as when I was at Canberra, the blokes they had there, all the Australian players. There were always questions about the Raiders.”
You can read the full account of this article… HERE!
Is the facade about the end? Time will be telling on this matter!
However, what can be told about this matter is that the NRL has historically claimed that the salary cap was the means, both, to make the game fair and make the game viable. At this time, when claim and counter-claim will be reported on, with each protagonist, more than willing to give their perspective, it is noteworthy to remember that this has been a “rod” of their own making, and should the NRL be found to be fiddling with their own schema, one can only ask, Why?
If the game needed to live and die by the salary cap, then like the family unit, constrained by the ramifications of a restrictive budget, the cloth is cut the best way one knows how, with such a reality also positively reflecting the blue-collar ethos and context of many of the fans of this confessedly, blue collar game… unlike those “RahRah” Union boys!
In a competitive sporting world, where the bottom end is the winning end, it would be tragic for this game, which punches above its weight, if it sold out its stated and self-induced principles, thereby, in the fullness of time, also selling out the game.
This really would seem like it wasn’t worth it!
What say you?
Until Next Time
i am jonny king
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