Why the NRL got it wrong

By Graham Cooke

Does the Australian Rugby League really have the health of its competition at heart or are its officials and administrators simply incompetent?

That was the question I asked myself after hearing the list of punishments meted out to the Melbourne Storm for its failure to keep within the mandated salary cap.

The Storm deserves to be punished - and the punishments should be severe. This was no bureaucratic bungle, no error of bookkeeping by a slipshod financial officer who didn't understand the rules. This was a deliberate and cynical rort. It is amazing that Melbourne Storm would have been able to assemble such a group of high-quality and obviously high-paid stars without arousing suspicions before.

So agreed there should be sanctions; agreed that the premierships and minor premierships should be stripped away - although the game's historians will be the only ones seriously perturbed about the blank spaces in the record books - agreed prize money should be returned and agreed there should be a monetary fine on top of that.

What I can't stomach is the decision to bar the team from accruing any points during the current season - even though it must keep on playing.

This is an unfair and devastating blow to the playing and coaching staff. For all the brave words currently being bandied around in the dressing rooms, the effect of playing week after week for no reward against teams that still have the incentive of taking two points will eventually sap the players' will to put in 100 per cent effort.

Why risk injury in a futile exercise? Team performances will decline, crowds will drop off and players and their agents will start to look elsewhere. I am afraid I join the increasing numbers of commentators who believe the Storm will not survive.

And if the AFL thinks it can just plonk in another franchise as a replacement it had better think again. League has a perilous enough toe-hold in the AFL stronghold as it is, and what fans the Storm does have will not easily forgive the code for treating it with contempt.

I believe rugby league's administrators missed the obvious solution to this part of the club's punishment - one that has worked well enough in the English Football League.

Instead of simply being told it cannot accrue points this season, the Storm should have been fined points, for argument's sake let's say 50.

The eight points already won this season would go towards the fine, reducing it to 42, and from then on the Storm would be playing to reduce the deficit further - every time it won the fine would be reduced by two points.

With 24 game in the regular season the total number of points available is 48, so there would bound to be a carry-over into the next season, but the storms incentive would be to have as few owed points as possible left at the end of the year, so it would start in a reasonably competitive position in 2011. In effect it would be playing for next season's premiership, while still having the ignominy of finishing at the foot of the table in 2010.

With the season continuing it is probably too late for a re-think, but in its haste to get sanctions into place the NRL may well have dealt the Storm - and the future of rugby league in Victoria - a fatal blow.