Storm for Wooden Spoon - Betting Suspended

[Huge]

Actually, in principle I don't disagree with the cap !! However it's best features are not used because the self interested Sydney based clubs stopped it from happening. The lack of allowances for players developed is the problem and the NRL are to blame for kowtowing to the demands of the Sydney centrics. If all clubs had of received an allowance for the players they developed then the Storm would not have paid under the counter. There would be no need.

The NRL refused to chip in and save our players from leaving but sat silently(and complicit I have no doubt) in the background as Melbourne strove to keep our best players in the game by actually paying them what they were worth !!!! The reason they would not chip in is very simple, Sydney based clubs who refused to breed their own players would not have derived a benefit and the Storm would have been stronger for longer. Deservedly so. The NRLs answer is to allow the players to leave our comp thereby weakening/lowering the standard.

In other words, the NRL wants an inferior comp because it costs them less, benefits a few Sydney clubs, requires little extra effort and provides scapegoats when things go pear-shaped.

Always remember......Gallup is a knee-jerker and autocrat who thinks his view is the only one. Not only was the punishment extreme in this case it was immediate and ill-considered. It was not thought through. He should have taken some time, consulted some reasonable thinkers, pondered for a week or more then handed down a thoughtful judgement. he did not do that though, him and a couple of mates spat out this injustice around the photocopier.

This coming from the same bloke who without consultation took the most extreme view and meted out an unjust penalty and punishment to Brisbane a few years back. Remember the outrageous decision to strip Brisbane of it's 2 points ?? No man/woman/dog in Australia could see that was fair and rightfully Sir Lawrence Street reversed that knee-jerk ill-considered wank. Same bloke, same brain, same situation in one way....................it was an out of Sydney team being punished...he won't hear any complaint from his town will he.???

 

[Coxy]

Can't compare the 2 point penalty for 14 men on the field. Sir Lawrence Street said in his judgement the only reason he overturned it was because the NRL implied there were occasions it was excusable to have 14 on the field and that it doesn't have an impact. Sir Lawrence Street said that was absurd and every time a team had 14 on the field and won the game they should be stripped of the 2 points, but because the Broncos were wrongly given the impression they had an argument against that he ruled in their favour.

 

[Huge]

Coxy,please. Your too smart to think I'm making a comparison between the offences !! It must be obvious what I was saying. Gallup makes ill-considered judgements without taking proper time to think and reason. Both judgements were handed out with unreasonable haste and without proper consideration. Please also note that this is an opinion held by others in better credentialled positions than myself.

 

[Coxy]

No, I'm saying that the punishment Gallop imposed on the Broncos was the right one.
The punishment on the Bulldogs was the right one, but perhaps should've done more to force the Bulldogs to change their roster for future years (them winning in 2004 was wrong).
The punishment of players such as Dane Tilse, Todd Carney etc for their behaviour was right.
The punishment of the Storm is right, to a point, with some conjecture.

The only thing I disagree with him on is his steadfast view the salary cap in its current form is working and is right.

I don't entirely agree with Gould that it has resulted in 100 players leaving our competition...frankly I think 50% of them were average players who needed to chase the money, and in any system here they wouldn't have got as much as they'd get in super league.

 

[Huge]

The penalty for stripping Brisbane was never the right one....not in any sense I'm sorry Coxy but will never agree. Gallup had at the time the footage and a reasonable penalty at the time, and one which would have been acceptable all round, was a fine for what was at the very most an extremely minor violation. Hundreds of times had that same offence been committed by all the clubs at some time or another. It was commonplace and had not been penalised in any previous case.

What Gallup did was went to the heaviest penalty he could straight away. he had an enormous range of penalties to choose from but took the hardest one he could without any justification at all. The only stiffer penalty he could have taken was to strip the Broncs of all points and kicked them out of the comp for the season and possibly life. he probably figured that might be seen as a tad too harsh but I'm betting if he had done so he would have found support in Sydney !!!!!!!

 

[Coxy]

No, that's absolute rubbish. There have been a number of occasions where 14 on the field has resulted in a 2 point penalty. When the offending team has lost it has been a heavy fine.

Back then the Broncos disobeyed the orders of the interchange official, disobeyed the rules and regulations surrounding player replacements, and the advantage gained was that Parker, who should not have been on the field yet, scored a try. It had a significant impact on the game. The result was the interchange cards that players have to hand to the interchange official before going on the field.

Anyway, this is off topic. You, like Gould and most other people, put the blame at the feet of Gallop for all the game's ills.

Other, more intelligent and broader thinking people like myself realise that Gallop is hamstrung by the two biggest players in the game - the ARL and News Limited - who still see eachother as sworn enemies, just as the US and Russia talk nice in public but still have their nukes aimed at eachother.

That said, I believe the new commission, should it ever happen, should have a new leader. Gallop has done an admirable job since the disastrous reign of David Moffatt, but a new commission needs new leadership, fresh leadership.

Frankly I think Brian Waldron should be approached (jokes).

 

[Huge]

Fair enough, I totally disagree as in the incident involving Brisbane ,Brisbane were left with only 12 players after a player was felled by an illegal tackle,the ref had erred by not allowing Brisbane to remove the fallen player before resuming play . Brisbane simply balanced the numbers and quite rightly so. It was the refs fault that play resumed. Brisbane did not gain any advantage but in point of actual fact were disadvantaged. As I said earlier, all this Gallup knew at the time and could/should have imposed a fine that reflected the true gravity of the offence. he chose to do the stupid thing.

I formed my opinion of Gallup without assistance from the bloated one and quite frankly find it a little unsettling to share Goulds opinion on anything. That said, I do not believe Gould feels Gallup is responsible for all the games ills but Gallup knew the vultures are circling our best talent and did/does nothing to stop it. He is fearful of the Sydney influence and that is obvious in his decision making. I also do not blame Gallup solely but I'm jaundiced by his treatment of those clubs outside the Sydney circle. There are many cases to cite but your belief in Gallup is unshakeable so I'll not try. I also am capable of acknowledging the competing influences in the background and have considered them in my responses.My belief is unchanged even with that said.

 

[Huge]

Coxy...I forgot to add that there had been no occasions where teams were penalised for a player leaving the field at the same time as a replacement was running on. It was commonplace in fact as was demonstrated at the hearing. Bulk footage provided at the time highlighted multiple times by multiple teams and was never penalised. it is not absolute rubbish.

What is true is in instances where a team had 14 players actively being involved and actually participating in play those teams were penalised. Where the player had no part in the game like brisbane that day and was actually at the other end of the field in an unconscious or semi-conscious state there had never been any action taken against any club. That's what I said, not that no team had been penalised for 14 on the field.

 

[Anonymous person]

I feel sorry for any team who has ever lost to a cap cheat.

do you feel sorry for Melbourne in 2006? [icon_wink

Surely you'd have to start asking questions when you're getting given $30K speedboats and $20 "gift" vouchers? If these players have to lose out, then so be it.

from what ive read, players are allowed to get given $30k speedboats and $20k gift vouchers as long as they dont wear their teams clothes in any promotions they do, and the CLUB reports those deals to the NRL. for all Inglis new, his club were reporting them. remember, thats how this whole thing came about - the CLUB werent being honest. Inglis and co had no reason to assume there was anything illegal going on.

 

[gUt]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/04/27/2883231.htm

Some thoughts by one of the game's truly great thinkers.

 

[QUEENSLANDER]

wow, that is a good video. he has some great points.

what do you take from a team that cheated the cap, but didnt win the premiership? what if in 10 years we found out 5 teams also cheated last year? do we give storm the title back?

 

[OXY-351]

Just give the last 5 years premierships to the Raiders. Surely there is no way they are cheating the salary cap

 

[Coxy]

It's an excellent point, although it again focusses too much on the retrospective punishment. IMO, it's mostly symbollic, with the only additional thing is repaying the prizemoney. Big whoop, just a bigger fine for teams that cheated successfully...fair enough.

IMO, the problem is the punishment for 2010. There's far too many negatives than positives. There's no requirement or incentive for the Storm to fix their situation ASAP. They might as well play out the season with their dodgy squad and **** up a lot of teams' chances at premiership success in the process.

There's limited punishment for ongoing seasons. As I said earlier, they might just unload a few fringe players like Tolman, enough to get their cap down to size and then still have the quartet of Inglis, Slater, Cronk and Smith who are good enough with adequate (not brilliant) players around them to win a comp. They showed that in 2009. IMO the 2009 Storm side was the weakest on the whole since Bellamy took over...didn't stop them winning the premiership.

So what can be done to make it more a deterrent? Options are ongoing salary cap sanctions, a la Carlton in the AFL. Negative of that, as said, is in a foreign market like Melbourne you almost render the Storm uncompetitive for the duration of that time which could cause them to fold.

Another option is clubs in breach of salary cap like this are forced to release players of the NRL's choosing, based on their registered value. eg, if the Storm are over by $700K for 2010, and Inglis is registered as $350K and Slater $350K, then both Inglis and Slater's contracts are deregistered and they are put up for grabs by the other 15 clubs. Big negatives of that are it's probably against trade practice laws, and even if it's not illegal, chances are Slater and Inglis would rather go play rugby union or in England than be forced to join another club (pseudo draft almost).

The current punishment is, given all that's weighed up, probably the fairest you can come up with that doesn't completely destroy the Storm, or risk massive court action against the NRL for unfair sanctions and forcing players to play elsewhere.

Plus the current punishment does have some ongoing deterrents:
- players are going to be filthy about the situation and may choose to leave anyway
- players from other clubs are going to be very reluctant to go to the Storm unless they're assured the situation is cleaned up

Honestly this is one of those issues where there's no right answer and solution. Just a bunch of imperfect answers and solutions that have to be weighed up.

 

[Coxy]

The problem is Coxy, if the Storm are allowed to play for points this year and keep the same team, what happens if they won the comp in 2010? Imagine if that happened, the game would be in tatters, it would be a disgrace.

I'm not saying they should play for points. What you've said is a real possibility. As it is there's still a real possibility they'll turn around and win next year. Is that any more palatable if all the Storm do is release some players who weren't the recipients of the dodgy deals anyway?

 

[Charmamba]

There's limited punishment for ongoing seasons. As I said earlier, they might just unload a few fringe players like Tolman, enough to get their cap down to size and then still have the quartet of Inglis, Slater, Cronk and Smith who are good enough with adequate (not brilliant) players around them to win a comp. They showed that in 2009.

Don't they still need to have a Top 25 registered? and isn't there a cap on how little they can be paid?

They offload say 7 Fringe players who are on 100,000, They then need to replace them with another 7 fringe players for their top25 and if the lowest amount allowed to be paid is 80,000 they would still be over...

If i am correct in my thinking then they would have to offload some regular first graders to get back under the 4.2

 

[Coxy]

There's limited punishment for ongoing seasons. As I said earlier, they might just unload a few fringe players like Tolman, enough to get their cap down to size and then still have the quartet of Inglis, Slater, Cronk and Smith who are good enough with adequate (not brilliant) players around them to win a comp. They showed that in 2009.

Don't they still need to have a Top 25 registered? and isn't there a cap on how little they can be paid?

They offload say 7 Fringe players who are on 100,000, They then need to replace them with another 7 fringe players for their top25 and if the lowest amount allowed to be paid is 80,000 they would still be over...

If i am correct in my thinking then they would have to offload some regular first graders to get back under the 4.2

I didn't state it, but I also expect the Storm to redo the deals for Inglis, Slater and Smith who were the alleged recipients of the "extra deals".

 

[gUt]

The Storm should be told to pick their best side, totalling the cap limit. Anyone who misses out either goes to another club, to reserve grade or to England, at the same time as having their contract with the Storm paid out. The Storm starts at 0 and earns 0 until this happens. Once it happens, they rejoin the comp properly. Any player who is moved on in this process remain available for rep selection if they desire.

Really, the NRL could do ANYTHING they wanted to fix this but there is the underlying issue of News Ltd trying to save face that is the main driver of the awkward punishment they have emotionally delivered.

 

[Huge]

News did'nt deliver this punishment did they..I thought it was the NRL through Gallup unless your last sentence referred to something else gUt