Another non-too-subtle dig at the Roosters from the Telegraph!

[Paddo Colt 61]

Hardly worth taking up any issue raised by the Tele and this is a non issue if ever there was one - it has all been canvassed before ad nauseam. Obviously, in the interests of watching the highest quality competition week after week, most of us would like to see an evening out of the player quality across the board and the Salary Cap helps to do that but it does not solve the problem of imbalance. As many have noted here, club culture, leadership, commitment to player development and managerial coaching talent are variables that can't easily be evenly distributed.
Sports coverage is a huge part of the Tele's agenda to sell their right wing tripe on all sorts of other matters and like those other issues, articles often feature a divisive grievance approach, pretty much guaranteed to get the suckers in.

[John Corey]

I thought the article was complimentary toward us. Not having a go at us at all.

[Mickie Lane]

The Brisbane Broncos are spending almost $2 million of their salary cap on two players who are not even rated in the NRL’s top 100.

Dumped skipper Darius Boyd and former Cronulla Sharks grand final hero Jack Bird have been left out of the top 100 after both struggling for the past two years.

Bird is off contract at the end of this season while Boyd has two seasons to go.

Other clubs are paying millions of dollars for players who are not justifying their salaries.

The Gold Coast’s Ash Taylor, Canterbury’s Kieran Foran and the Cronulla Sharks’ Josh Dugan are on a combined $3 million.

It shows the NRL salary cap is not working.

This list of arguably the top 100 players in the competition shows a significant gap between the top and bottom sides.

It demonstrates the premiership heavyweights have up to four times more elite stars than many of their struggling rivals and that the talent pool is lopsided, even with all teams spending $9.5 million.

The NRL will reasonably argue there have been seven different ?premiers in the past 10 years, that success goes in cycles, and that no sporting competition will ever have ?completely level rosters.

However, the New Zealand Warriors, the Gold Coast Titans and the Canterbury Bulldogs are clearly off the pace, with a combined eight players in the top 100. It is hard to believe they spend the same amount as the glamour clubs.

The Penrith Panthers and the Newcastle Knights have only four top players each.

Warriors recruitment chief Peter O’Sullivan has been in the NRL for 25 years and knows the business ?better than most. He has offered huge money to Matt Lodge, David Fifita and other big names in recent times with no results.

“They haven’t needed to move to get the bigger dollars,” O’Sullivan said.

“We have to develop them. We have to buy undervalued players and local kids and turn them into top 100 players.

“We are confident we are heading in the right direction.”

At the other end of the scale, ?premiers the Sydney Roosters still have the most elite players along with the Melbourne Storm, despite the retirement of Cooper Cronk and the departure of Latrell Mitchell.

The Canberra Raiders and the South Sydney Rabbitohs are the next strongest in the top 100.

It highlights the importance of having a coach who can attract ?players, or a smart one like Ricky Stuart who made a raid on Great Britain’s best talent to build his ?magnificent Raiders roster.

There are three coaching standouts in recruitment — Trent Robinson, Craig Bellamy and Wayne Bennett. Players will accept less to join their clubs because of their track records.

You then look at the Wests Tigers and coach Michael Maguire who, until signing the unwanted Joey Leilua last week, couldn’t attract a decent player.

Mitchell rejected Maguire’s $4 million offer over four years to ?accept an extraordinary $3.3 million less — a $700,000 one-season deal at the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

Boom forward Ryan Matterson broke his contract and walked out on the Tigers because he didn’t want to play under the 2014 premiership-winning coach. So too did powerful centre Esan Marsters.

Titans forward Jai Arrow took $200,000 a season less than he could have earned at the Wests Tigers to join the Rabbitohs. It’s said Maguire’s punishing approach at training is a turn-off for potential recruits.

Penrith’s Ivan Cleary is another who has struggled to attract top ?talent. He left the Wests Tigers in a terrible mess by paying way over the top for the likes of Josh Reynolds, Russell Packer and Ben Matulino.

He has also released top 100 ?players Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Waqa Blake and Reagan Campbell-Gillard from the Panthers.

Back-to-back premiers the Roosters are often accused of rorting the salary cap. Yet they rarely get into bidding wars to keep players.

Mitchell was offered $800,000 a year for two seasons but knocked it back. They withdrew the offer.

They let Roger Tuivasa-Sheck go in 2016 because they refused to match the Warriors offer. The same with James Maloney, who was ?released in 2015.

It is a fact that elite players will accept less to play under Robinson, who has won three premierships in seven years.
Even youngsters like boom 17-year-old halfback Sam Walker will take less to play at Moore Park, for the opportunity to learn from the three-time premiership coach. He could have got $200,000 more at Belmore.

At the Roosters you are also ?almost guaranteed to play finals football and it increases your ?chances of playing State of Origin or Test football and getting the bonuses that go with it.

At the same time, the weaker clubs often have to pay overs to sign the bigger names — and that weakens the rest of the roster.

The Knights have a ‘‘big three’’ — Mitchell Pearce, Kalyn Ponga and Dave Klemmer — but have struggled to build a competitive roster around them because the funds have not been available.

That might change this year with the appointment of the highly ?regarded coach Adam O’Brien, ?although he will have basically the same roster that Nathan Brown failed with.

At least he’s come out of the Storm and Roosters systems — they are the best in the business.

NRL’S TOP 100 PLAYERS

Brisbane Broncos (7): David Fifita, Payne Haas, Matt Lodge, Anthony Milford, Corey Oates, Tevita Pangai, Kotoni Staggs

Canberra Raiders (9): John Bateman, Nick Cotric, Jarrod Croker, Josh Hodgson, Josh Papalii, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Elliott Whithead, Jack Wighton, Joseph Tapine

Canterbury Bulldogs (3): Will Hopoate, Josh Jackson, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak

Cronulla Sharks (6): Wade Graham, Andrew Fifita, Matt Moylan, Shaun Johnson, Bronson Xerri, Chad Townsend

Gold Coast Titans (3): Jai Arrow, Jarrod Wallace, Alexander Brimson

Manly Sea Eagles (7): Daly Cherry-Evans, Addin Fonua-Blake, Curtis Sironen, Marty Taupau, Jake Trbojevic, Tom Trbojevic, Dylan Walker

Melbourne Storm (11): Josh Addo-Carr, Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Jesse Bromwich, Kenny Bromwich, Dale Finucane, Felise Kaufusi, Ryan Papenhuyzen,

Cameron Munster, Brandon Smith, Cameron Smith, Suliasi Vunivalu

Newcastle Knights (4): Dave Klemmer, Mitchell Pearce, Kalyn Ponga, Daniel Saifiti

North Queensland Cowboys (5): Valentine Holmes, Kyle Feldt, Josh McGuire, Michael Morgan, Jason Taumalolo

Parramatta Eels (9): Waqa Blake, Dylan Brown, Nathan Brown, Blake Ferguson, Clint Gutherson, Mitchell Moses, Maika Sivo, Reagan Campbell-Gillard, Ryan Matterson

Penrith Panthers (4): Nathan Cleary, James Fisher-Harris, Viliame Kikau, James Tamou

St George-Illawarra Dragons (6): Tyson Frizell, James Graham, Ben Hunt, Tariq Sims, Paul Vaughan, Cameron McInnes

South Sydney Rabbitohs (8): Tom Burgess, Damien Cook, Dane Gagai, Latrell Mitchell, Cameron Murray, Adam Reynolds, James Roberts, Cody Walker

Sydney Roosters (11): Boyd Cordner, Angus Crichton, Jake Friend, Luke Keary, Joseph Manu, Brett Morris, Victor Radley, Sio Siua Taukeiaho, James Tedesco, Daniel Tupou, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves

New Zealand Warriors (2): Blake Green, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck

Wests Tigers (5): Luke Brooks, Benji Marshall, Moses Mbye, Joey Leilua, Adam Doueihi

I cant believe Duges is not in the top 100.
Benji has been a top player but he wouldnt make my top 100 & the sooner the Tigers move on from him the better they will be.. In fact he wouldnt make my run on side.
Dylan Brown from Parra, what has he done to be in the top 100? I reckon Lachlan Lewis from the Dogs is better than him.

[ism22]

> At the other end of the scale, ?premiers the Sydney Roosters still have the most elite players along with the Melbourne Storm, despite the retirement of Cooper Cronk and the departure of Latrell Mitchell.

> The Canberra Raiders and the South Sydney Rabbitohs are the next strongest in the top 100.

So 2019's top 4 (in order) had more form players than the teams below them? Great observation there, oh wise ones! They are then like 'the salary cap is not working' because Darius Boyd and Jack Bird lacked form in 2019.

FFS what an idiotic, self-serving argument! Please... find a year for me when the top 4 teams had a bunch of fukking leaners who under-performed!!! Doesn't happen.

Also, does the tele always write like that? Small. Sentences. Small. Paras. It's frigging annoying to read!!!

[QWERTY]

James Roberts isn’t a top 100 player

[Mickie Lane]

James Roberts isn’t a top 100 player

What about everyone's favourite Cody Walker?

[Rooster1908]

I cant believe Duges is not in the top 100.
Benji has been a top player but he wouldnt make my top 100 & the sooner the Tigers move on from him the better they will be.. In fact he wouldnt make my run on side.
Dylan Brown from Parra, what has he done to be in the top 100? I reckon Lachlan Lewis from the Dogs is better than him.

What about these to usetobes

Matt Moylan, Shaun Johnson

[Rooster1908]

[QUOTE=ism22;n817287]> At the other end of the scale, ?premiers the Sydney Roosters still have the most elite players along with the Melbourne Storm, despite the retirement of Cooper Cronk and the departure of Latrell Mitchell.

By my count we have an astonishing eleven and Storm seven

[Rooster_6]

A salary cap provides every club the same opportunity. It will not provide an equal outcome because that is up to the clubs on how they choose to spend it.

What the salary cap does a good job of is stopping cash from becoming disproportionately the greatest competitive advantage in the game like it is in Football (soccer) at the moment.

Because of this the most succesful clubs are generally outperforming their peers in other areas of competitive advantage such as;
- Junior Pathways
- Coaching & development
- Sports Science
- Data analytics
- Injury management
- Training facilities
- Tactical strategy
- High performance coaching
- Talent identification and recruitment
- Commercial management
- Culture & Team Engagement
- Mental well-being

If we use Rothfield's example of how he has measured clubs by number of "top 100 players" then the fact that Canterbury a club with the richest leagues club in the game and the Warriors who are owned by a multi millionaire are at the bottom shows the salary cap is doing exactly what its intended to do. Stop clubs from simply buying their way to the top.

Both clubs were given exactly the same amount of money to spend on their roster as every other club. That is equal opportunity, any perceived failure should be a reflection on those clubs "not working", not the salary cap.

If anything its actually a huge compliment.

[Jacks Fur Coat]

A salary cap provides every club the same opportunity. It will not provide an equal outcome because that is up to the clubs on how they choose to spend it.

What the salary cap does a good job of is stopping cash from becoming disproportionately the greatest competitive advantage in the game like it is in Football (soccer) at the moment.

Because of this the most succesful clubs are generally outperforming their peers in other areas of competitive advantage such as;
- Junior Pathways
- Coaching & development
- Sports Science
- Data analytics
- Injury management
- Training facilities
- Tactical strategy
- High performance coaching
- Talent identification and recruitment
- Commercial management
- Culture & Team Engagement
- Mental well-being

If we use Rothfield's example of how he has measured clubs by number of "top 100 players" then the fact that Canterbury a club with the richest leagues club in the game and the Warriors who are owned by a multi millionaire are at the bottom shows the salary cap is doing exactly what its intended to do. Stop clubs from simply buying their way to the top.

Both clubs were given exactly the same amount of money to spend on their roster as every other club. That is equal opportunity, any perceived failure should be a reflection on those clubs "not working", not the salary cap.

If anything its actually a huge compliment.

Good post 6.

Spare us from the world according to Bandt where we are all equally poor and every kiddie wins a small prize, and mediocrity is rewarded.

[Mad_Rabid_Rooster]

Good posts R6 and JFC, I completely agree with the points made.

[milanja]

Is being a top 100 player that big of an achievement?

considering there are 16 teams putting there best 13 on the field, it only equates to 208 players in total, being in the top 100 is similar to playing finals football by losing more games than you win, it’s an overrated reward.

[The Skeez]

Good post 6.

Spare us from the world according to Bandt where we are all equally poor and every kiddie wins a small prize, and mediocrity is rewarded.

You should read 6’s post about religion and politics too

[Jacks Fur Coat]

You should read 6’s post about religion and politics too

You're a prize fkwit with too much time on your hands.

Care to explain your 'thoughts and prayers' comment in the other thread?

[The Skeez]

You're a prize fkwit with too much time on your hands.

Care to explain your 'thoughts and prayers' comment in the other thread?

Calm down Coat.

Not that you have the time but the comment originated I response to Billy Smiths knee.

Somehow you brought a tragedy into a footy forum. It sounds like it affected you. You should talk to someone.