Eels Blogs

Mr. Smith,

I watched with interest when you appeared on television last week waving your big stick at my club, the Parramatta Eels, for salary cap breaches you have apparently found us guilty of committing.

Well, out Parramatta way, we have also just had a verdict returned - and we find yourself and the NRL guilty of gross incompetence when it comes to managing a fair and reasonable sporting competition.

This week, the coach of my club, Brad Arthur, was forced to pick players for our upcoming match, not on form or based on who he thinks gives us the best chance of winning; rather he’s selected a team that is “salary cap compliant”.

Mr. Smith, I know you like to boast a lot about how even the competition is. Well, we don’t feel things are too even over our way. You might have noticed we’re bottom of the table having had a lousy run of injuries for most of the year - oh, and there was also the fact that your judiciary committee decided to rub out our best prop forward for more than a third of the competition for a tackle no worse than others that drew a couple weeks suspension. But that’s another story...

Anyway, back to those injuries. We’ve only got 18 of out Top 25 available this week, and you know what, a few of those guys aren’t really performing. But your system means we have to pick them anyway. Meanwhile, there are some blokes we can’t pick. Some young players who have busted their guts this year to try and earn a debut and some older guys who are trying to keep their NRL careers alive. They don’t earn a lot of money down on those second tier contracts; you’d think the least we could do for them is give them every opportunity to earn their shot at the big time.

When your system denies kids and battlers the chance to earn their way up the ladder, your system is broken. Busted. It’s no good.

How do you explain the situation to Luke Kelly? Kelly could have been one of the good news stories of the year. One of the NRL’s most successful Northern Territory juniors, Kelly’s career looked all but over, but against all odds, he was given what could have been his last shot at the NRL and he responded with three try assists. But we can’t pick him this week because of your ridiculous second-tier salary cap system.

This is a system, after all, that saw the Eels add $60k to their second tier cap, because we were forced to play Taniela Lasalo for four minutes with the only option being to play a man short or put a concussion-affected player on its bench. That’s $15k a minute, which surely must seem like a lot of money, even to a rich banker like yourself Mr. Smith.

And I note that you’re suddenly very concerned with governance at Parramatta. Shame you weren’t quite so concerned last year when our current board was battling for control over our district football club. A little bit of public or private pressure from the NRL to ask a couple of embattled directors to temporarily step aside, could have saved our district club, but no, that wasn’t your place was it?

Indeed, I note that you weren't nearly as concerned about governance when you found the Gold Coast guilty of a salary cap breach the year prior. The suspended points penalty you gave was purely based on adhering to the salary cap, as have all other suspended penalties you’ve handed out in the past. I also note that you suspended part of the fine because the Titans self-reported. No such generosity was afforded the Eels.

Instead you have taken the unprecedented step of forcing our club to undertake YOUR audit and to implement YOUR recommendations. This despite the fact that Parramatta has clearly invested much of its energies over the past two years in cleaning up its own house. This despite the fact that our Leagues Club members just overwhelmingly endorsed ongoing governance reforms by voting in all seven members of Steve Sharp’s ParraFirst ticket. This despite the fact that we’ve already indicated we’ll be salary cap compliant this year.

One might of thought that you would be overjoyed that a club with the size and pull of Parramatta was finally getting itself into shape. You know, we’re one of the clubs that you HAVEN'T had to bail out of financial difficulty. And that’s right, we’re also one of the clubs that has recorded major increases in crowd attendance and membership helping you to meet your KPIs. But apparently things are so dire out our way, you feel an intervention is necessary.

Now, if I were a cynical person, I might suggest that it is quite a coincidence that all of this is happening at a time when press reports claim that NRL clubs are at the brink of a revolt because of the lousy share of the purse you dole out. I'm sure it would be real handy right now if you had another couple of your own people on another board to head off any trouble makers.

Parramatta has already manned up to our past problems and mistakes of the past and we’re moving forward even without your generous intervention efforts. Maybe, instead of us taking a leaf from your book, Mr. Smith, you might take a leaf from ours. Man up to fixing the stupid system that forces clubs afflicted with injuries to either break the rules or lose games. Because you know what, while you might have been happy for us to win three-straight wooden spoons, that wouldn’t have gone down well out here. And we have a history of burning stuff down, you know.

And once you fix that, well, you might want to head up and check out the good folk over in Manly and the Gold Coast where I think they’ve got an issue with another of your well-intentioned but fundamentally broken rules.

Kind regards,

Phil Sim

aka 1Eyed Eel