Melborne Storm stripped / MM wants Wigan to be new Melbourne

[exile in Tiger country]

This could make things interesting.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 639487.stm

[neilbass]

Former captain Robbie Kearns says it is unlikely any would have known about the unfair payments.

"I can't speak for them but I think they probably presumed they were getting their fair slice of the pie, they're not adding up the slices to work out there's more than a pie here," Kearns stated.

I like the way he puts it - plenty pie over here!!

[GeoffN]

Well, the players and fans haven't let events get them down too much. 24,000 watched them crush the Warriors.

[cpwigan]

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... -tkef.html

Why didn't the NRL see this earlier? When did David Gallop first know that Melbourne Storm were over the salary cap?

If it's true he didn't discover there was a problem until only recently, why didn't he suspect a problem much sooner than this? Blind Freddy could see the Storm's playing roster was looking very different to many other NRL teams.

With all those representative players on their books (as it turns out the plural form of this word was right on the money - nice one, Gus!), the Melbourne club was still able to find a home for quality players such as Clint Newton, Brett Finch, Luke MacDougall and Todd Lowrie when they became available. If these signings didn't raise the red flag then what about their interest in Willie Mason during last off-season? Surely someone was asking the Storm the big question.

My God - if the Cronulla Sharks, New Zealand Warriors and Canberra Raiders were at the limits of their salary caps, how come the Storm's cap was so flexible?

Someone needed to tap them on the shoulder and tell them it was all becoming a bit too obvious. But no, we let it continue until fixing the rorts now becomes a calamity of nuclear proportions.

Mind you, the precedents had been set. Go back through some of the champion teams since the introduction of salary cap laws and see if you can fit their player lists under the salary cap limits of the day. The public aren't idiots. We know the rules.

That's what is so stupid about all this. Ask the fans if they think all other NRL teams are under the salary cap or if they think others are fudging, even to a small extent. It's like cheating on your tax returns.

But again it raises the question: what good are salary cap laws that cannot detect five years of cheating until an unwitting staff member hands you a second set of books, or a disgruntled ex-employee blows the whistle on the evil deeds of past years?

Remember, for the past five seasons, the NRL's salary cap audit process had given the Melbourne club the big tick to say all spending was within acceptable limits.

This is the very same auditing process that failed to uncover the massive Canterbury Bulldog rorts years earlier.

Our system at the moment virtually forces clubs to cheat if they want to remain competitive, yet cannot detect major cheating until it is too late.

Not for one moment am I questioning the integrity of the auditors. However, in all businesses around the world, the process is only as good as the information given to the auditor.

I'm just saying that for our game, we can't afford a system that produces such tumultuous repercussions and penalties when the truth finally comes to the surface.

The stripping of premierships, $1.6 million fines, loss of major sponsors and disillusionment of fans, the irreparable damage to the reputations and brands of the Melbourne Storm - all could've been prevented had this matter been nipped in the bud years ago and had our salary cap laws been more responsive to the needs of the modern era.

What did we expect them to do?

Years ago the NRL decided to put a team in Melbourne. Their charter was to sell the game of rugby league to a city steeped in the traditions of VFL and now AFL football.

They existed, survived in a city that didn't want them, playing out of a stadium that was from a forgotten era, witnessed by media that would put their results on the same page as junior AFL.

If we delivered this city an average team, with average coaches, achieving average results, the rugby league mission down south wouldn't have reached first base. No Storm player should be minutely tainted in this latest tragedy. They played the game like no other team ever.

They joined the Storm adventure as youngsters, hopefuls, misfits, could-be, would-be, has-been players; but they became a team that you had to beat because they would never give up.

They became champions; not once, not twice, but thrice. They became world club champions on two occasions, if you please, effectively promoting the Melbourne Storm brand to all corners of the sporting globe.

Their record over the past 12 years is better than any other club or franchise in the NRL during that time.

In more recent years, the Melbourne Storm fans fell in love with their latest crop of stars such as Billy Slater, Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk, Greg Inglis, Israel Folau, Ryan Hoffman, Dallas Johnson, Adam Blair, Jeremy Smith, Brett White, Steve Turner, Anthony Quinn, Jeff Lima; all of whom came to the Storm as virtual nobodies and graduated to the status of premiership winners and representative-class footballers.

As the list of team and personal achievements grew, so too did the value of all these players.

What did we expect the club to do? Let it all go?

Did we expect them to let these ridiculous salary cap laws gradually pull the team apart so they could be held back with the average teams in the league?

The Melbourne franchise was pushing for a new stadium. They were really starting to make some inroads in the marketplace. They had to keep them together. The temptation to cheat was more than too great; it was virtually imperative.

In my opinion, the Storm developed these players - they should be entitled to keep them. They just should've been prevented from signing players from other clubs until their wage bill came down or their position on the premiership table warranted bolstering of the ranks.

Let's be honest here. If the Melbourne Storm didn't cheat the salary cap, Greg Inglis would've been lost to rugby or the English Super League. Brett Finch would definitely be in England, and probably with several others as well.

You see, the current salary cap laws frown upon teams as good as the Melbourne Storm. Where our game's leaders should be striving for systems that replicate the strength of the Storm in all rugby league clubs, the salary cap system suggests all teams should look more like the Cronulla Sharks.

Well, I doubt the Cronulla Sharks would ever sell rugby league to the Melbourne public.

We have to let them compete.

David Gallop's insistence that the Melbourne Storm has to play the remainder of this season without the possibility of accruing premiership points shows how little he and his advisers understand the physical and emotional demands of professional football.

It is naivety in the extreme. In fact, I bet none of the people who contributed to this ridiculous decision have ever strapped a boot on in their lives.

To expect these players to commit themselves to the physical stress of the NRL competition with no incentive of advancement is like asking someone to keep banging their head against a brick wall until the pain goes away.

Such a ruling also creates enormous problems.

We now know this Melbourne Storm has been illegally assembled.

The four teams beaten by the Storm so far this season have cause for protest that they were cheated of valuable competition points that could mean the difference between a minor premiership or a finish in the top four or top eight.

If the NRL allows the Storm to keep playing each week with this illegal roster, then any team beaten by the Storm between now and September is entitled to protest they were cheated out of valuable competition points that could make the difference to their season.

We can't say the playing field is level; because under the NRL draw some teams have to play the Storm twice in the premiership rounds and others only once.

So there are only two possible solutions here.

The NRL either sacks the Storm for season 2010 and we declare their matches as a forfeit or a bye. If we do this we may as well fold the Storm immediately and send them packing to Brisbane, because the Storm would be as dead as disco.

Otherwise, we take immediate measures to get the Storm under the salary cap and start them back in the competition on zero premiership points and see how good they are.

If the NRL and News Ltd are serious about having a team in Melbourne for the future then this is the only sensible option.

Take the current Storm roster and the player values the Storm are paying, and tell them to select $4.1 million worth of bodies. That now becomes their player list for the rest of the season and if they get injuries then they'll just have to call on Toyota Cup rookies like all the other teams in the NRL.

The players who miss out should be fully paid immediately and told they can head back to second-tier competitions or find themselves a start with other NRL clubs (if they can fit them in the salary cap, naturally).

The Players' Association would have to support such a move but provided the players in question received their full monetary entitlements, in the best interests of the game, I can't see where they would have a problem.

Gallop keeps telling us what can't be done. At the moment our game is urgent need of some can-do management.

[GeoffN]

That's a superb article, a lot of which is relevant to this country, too.

[DaveO]

That's a superb article, a lot of which is relevant to this country, too.

Agreed. Well written and thought out article. The point about the desire and need to keep a successful side together as the value of the players brought through by the Storm's own junior ranks rose highlights a major problem of the cap we have not really seen here. That is the minute you do all that is asked such as developing players and turning them into a successful side you are forced to disband it.

Over here it's a bit easier for Wigan, Saints and Leeds to hang onto players because there isn't enough money in the game for some of the lesser clubs to offer great wages to tempt them away so they may as well stay put and hopefully pick up prize money (which is outside the cap). I am thinking of KFC for example. In Oz he'd have left Saints long ago as the other clubs can all pay to the cap so would have been able to offer him a much better deal.

There is something inherently unnatural in being penalised for being successful in sport. For a team like the Storm in an outpost away from the games heartlands in Oz continued success was no doubt considered imperative to grow the brand and cement the team in the area so you might have thought the Oz RFL would have given them some dispensation such as a salary cap discount for home grown players. Had they done so the temptation to cheat would not have been so great.

I also like the article because it shows the cap is not universally thought of as a perfect system in Oz and whenever there is a debate about it on rlfans or here the OZ cap system is often held up as the reason we should have one.

Dave

[GeoffN]

That's a superb article, a lot of which is relevant to this country, too.

Over here it's a bit easier for Wigan, Saints and Leeds to hang onto players because there isn't enough money in the game for some of the lesser clubs to offer great wages to tempt them away so they may as well stay put and hopefully pick up prize money (which is outside the cap). I am thinking of KFC for example. In Oz he'd have left Saints long ago as the other clubs can all pay to the cap so would have been able to offer him a much better deal.

A bit easier, yes, but that aspect still worries me for the future of some of our up-and-coming lads. What happens if and when they get into, say, the £90k - £100k income bracket, which is less than superstar wages, but still affordable. We can't pay everyone that sort of money, even if we offload our really high earners.

In the not too distant future, I can easily see some clubs offering our youngsters more than we can afford under the cap. It then remains to be seen whether they'll decide to stay at Wigan for less money.

[mike binder]

simple answer scrap the cap its not working an way,

[DaveO]

That's a superb article, a lot of which is relevant to this country, too.

Over here it's a bit easier for Wigan, Saints and Leeds to hang onto players because there isn't enough money in the game for some of the lesser clubs to offer great wages to tempt them away so they may as well stay put and hopefully pick up prize money (which is outside the cap). I am thinking of KFC for example. In Oz he'd have left Saints long ago as the other clubs can all pay to the cap so would have been able to offer him a much better deal.

A bit easier, yes, but that aspect still worries me for the future of some of our up-and-coming lads. What happens if and when they get into, say, the £90k - £100k income bracket, which is less than superstar wages, but still affordable. We can't pay everyone that sort of money, even if we offload our really high earners.

In the not too distant future, I can easily see some clubs offering our youngsters more than we can afford under the cap. It then remains to be seen whether they'll decide to stay at Wigan for less money.

Yes I agree we will get to this undesirable state of affairs eventually.

What is bad about it is it relies on other teams being able to provide a home for these players which means they have not produced their own players or they would not need to look at ours.

If they had (produced their own) then it would drive wages down across the board as supply would outstrip demand but I don't even think driving wages down is a desirable state of affairs as players may then look to RU in greater numbers or even the NRL which operate a higher salary cap than we do especially since the pound went down in value.

Dave

[exile in Tiger country]

Watching NRL coverage on MSK,one pundit suggested that the Storm should be allowed to gain points from now if they get within the cap. They are only about $500,000 Au over this year, so just lose a couple of big name players, pay them off but not count it within the cap, and carry on from zero points. Inglis & Slater for example can then play for another team, anywhere in the world, without this seasons wage counting in the cap, because it has been paid by Melbourne. This would IMO be a good idea. I know their backline is amazing, but have they got any world class props going spare?
Mr. Maguire, get on the 'phone.
The supporters and the Storm players were amazing on Sunday.