The Salary Cap Conundrum
by
Tuesday April 01, 2003

It's April Fools Day and the Brisbane Broncos have already been forced to talk about the annual question that causes the club so much pain - who will have to be let go?  In this sometimes cruel realm of professional Rugby League, the harsh reality of the National Rugby League's salary cap sinks in for some much more than others - just ask Ashley Harrison.

The likeable, talented young back rower who stormed into the Broncos' first grade squad as a fresh faced 18 year old in 2000 was forced to look elsewhere last year after the Broncos were left short on their salary cap - offering Harrison far less than the deal he had signed just two years earlier.

The pain of that decision has barely subsided and now the Broncos have to face the tough questions again, and this year an unprecedented 13 players come off contract on June 30. While Test prop Shane Webcke has re-signed until the end of 2006, the Broncos could field a formidable starting side made up solely of players due to come off contract. 

How's this for a team:

1. Michael De Vere
2. Steve Irwin
3. Shaun Berrigan
4. Casey McGuire
5. Stuart Kelly
6. Ben Ikin
7. Scott Prince
8. Corey Parker
9. Richard Swain
10. Petero Civoniceva
11. Dane Carlaw
12. Brad Meyers
13. Phil Lee

Broncos' new managing director, Bruno Cullen, was frank about the task facing him and his team over the coming months.  Cullen, who took over from Shane Edwards in January, said that the club will have to shed at least two players to fit the talent under the $3.25 million salary cap.

With the current squad fitting under the salary cap, logic dictates that if the Broncos re-sign their off contract players for the same money they can retain them.  But football players, whose careers are shortening in length as the game gets more and more demanding, rarely want to settle for the same - and never settle for less without a fight.

The Broncos' difficulties are compounded by the fact several of the off contract players have improved greatly since signing their last contracts.  Dane Carlaw, Brad Meyers, Shaun Berrigan, Michael De Vere and Petero Civoniceva have gone on to representative honours, while Corey Parker, Steve Irwin and Casey McGuire came of age in 2002.

Richard Swain came to the club as an absolute bargain after he was dumped by Melbourne Storm late last year, and Ben Ikin is on an incentive contract after two years out injured.

And while it may sound harsh, the struggles of Phil Lee, Stuart Kelly and Scott Prince for varying reasons could well reduce their bargaining power.  That also makes them the chief candidates for becoming the scapegoats of the annual salary cap witch hunt.

Cullen laments the fact that so many players are coming off contract at the same time, and that means he will be aiming to vary the duration of the contracts that will be signed this year, in the hopes of avoiding a repeat of this situation down the track.

"I'm not criticising my predecessors but you'd just like to think you could mix them up a bit better, maybe have a third of them coming off every three years or something like that," Cullen told The Australian.

Test prop Shane Webcke, who was the first player to re-sign with the Broncos this week, is an example the Broncos will hope his teammates will follow.  After serving with the club since 1995, the popular Leyburn product said he never seriously considered being anywhere else. "I am pleased. I feel very fortunate and certainly proud to have been a part of such a great organisation as the Broncos, and I could never image playing anywhere else or in other colours," he said. 

The straight shooting prop is a rarity in Rugby League these days, one of only a handful of players who does all his contract negotiations himself, without the intervention of a manager. Given Brisbane's well publicised problems dealing with certain managers in the past, Webcke's attitude is welcome.

Those managers will be warming up for heavy duty bargaining in the coming months.  Last year that bargaining cost the Broncos Lote Tuqiri (Rugby Union), Chris and Shane Walker (Souths) and Harrison (Souths).  The Broncos will be hoping for a much better result from negotiations this time around.