Player trading - get over it
by Chris Cox
Friday July 16, 2004

Much has been said about the NRL's controversial June 30 anti-tampering amnesty after one of the most frantic player trading months in years.  The push is on once again to have the situation changed and the media are pushing as hard as they can for an end of season date.

The situation has been more public this year with the signings of Ruben Wiki and Steve Price by the Warriors, and the two month saga of Canberra's Joel Monaghan agonising over where he was playing next year, before settling with the Sydney Roosters.

The NRL and the media have said that the fans of Canberra and the Bulldogs have been the real victims in all of this, with particular reference to a young fan who has idolised Price and formed a bond with him in the past 6 months.

However, as a fan myself, I have a blunt message to my fellow fans decrying the fact their favourite players are leaving, or thinking about leaving their team...  get over it.

The National Rugby League is a professional sporting organisation.  Each of the 500-odd players who take the field in first grade throughout the season are trying to earn a living. For most players, their window of opportunity to make that living is short.  Some players last 10-15 years, but for some their career is over in two or three seasons.

The thing a lot of people seem to forget is these players are just like you and me.  They have families. They have mortgages. They have children.  Some have parents who need financial assistance.  They still pay income tax, and some players would pay more in tax than many of us earn in a year or two.

With the way the game is hurtling towards full time professionalism, many players have to forego their tertiary education until their career is over.  By the time they finish up, what money they have earnt needs to be used to establish themselves for later life.  Afterall, they'll be living for 50-odd years beyond their rugby league retirement and many will suffer long term effects from the physical stress of playing the game over 10-15 years.

Now gaining an understanding of what the players' position is, put yourself in their shoes.  You're employed on a contract.  Your contract expires in 6 months' time and most of the competitors' employers are wanting to hire now to prepare for the next year. They need you there no more than a month after your contract expires.

Many of your employer's competitors are based interstate, some even internationally.  You have children in school.  You have a house and a mortgage.  You have cars.  You have investments.

You want to get things sorted out now and be able to do your job to the best of your ability.  The closer it gets to the end of your contract, the more you get stressed and concerned about what you're going to be doing next year.  

However, your industry is telling you that you can't talk to any of the competitors until your contract is three months from expiry.  Worse than that, your current employer is not exactly rushing to get you to renew your contract, and they aren't letting you talk to anyone else.

Right about now, how are you feeling?

Pretty darn stressed I imagine.

Now picture it.  The industry is now telling you that you can't start talking to competitors until you're within a fortnight of your contract expiring.  Your employer still hasn't given you permission to negotiate beforehand while lots of your peers in the industry have been. Your employer still hasn't offered you anything to renew.  Just about all the competing employers have filled their employment roster for next year.

The day finally comes and the only employer offering you a job is based in New Zealand.  They want you there to start your professional training and induction in two weeks.You know that if you turn them down you might have to wait until the next employment period in 12 months to get another job - and by then your skills are obsolete or out of date.

You have no choice but to accept. You need to get a work visa, you need to find a place to live, you need to move your family...

Your union would be up in arms and ready to bash down the doors of your industry association.  

But this is the scenario the media want Rugby League players in Australia to endure. It's laughable.  

The excuse that the fans are the ones hurt by the "cattle trade" is outrageous.  Fans support their team.  They will welcome the star player from the club across town or interstate with open arms, but as soon as a player even thinks about other options they're crucified.  Disloyal!  Money grubbing!  Selfish!

Give me a break.  In six months time those fans who are in uproar will be cheering on whoever else their club can trot out onto the paddock for the next season.

Fans can put up with it.  Fans are resilient.  Fans still have their jobs and can change jobs and move onto greener pastures as they see fit.

What they can't put up with is players who, in the midst of conducting negotiations, are gallavanting across the country and letting their football form slide.  That is where the coach has to put his foot down and say "shape up or ship out early".  Give them a taste in reserve grade and see if, once they decide their future, they show some commitment and earn their place back in first grade.

Justin Hodges knows all about that - twice. He was dumped by the Broncos in 2001 after signing with the Roosters, who have returned favour this season with Hodges returning to Brisbane next year. Both Wayne Bennett and Ricky Stuart did the right thing by their clubs, and in turn by their clubs' fans.  They gave someone who was committed and focussed on playing for their club an opportunity in first grade - to do the job by their fans.

While coaches do that, fans have little to complain about with respect to the trade period. Coaches that don't, well the fans should direct their anger towards them.

What is constantly overlooked with the idea of pushing the date back to the end of the season is that the most disruptive and damaging thing to the NRL simply becomes a player's only real option.

The anti-tampering rules don't apply to the English Super League or Rugby Union.  It's almost a fait accompli that if the deadline moves to the end of the season, the number and frequency of players leaving the NRL will increase, possibly dramatically.

Abolishing the anti-tampering date would be untenable - 12 months a year we'd be faced with the rumour and innuendo of what a player is doing.  Every player coming off contract would feature on radio, in the papers, on TV all year round with speculation of where they'll be.  Only the mentally toughest of players could withstand that without being affected. June 30 is as close a fair compromise as you can get.  

Ultimately it's the players that deserve to make a living out of the game they play so well and, in the process, give the fans so much enjoyment.  The diatribe from the fans that greets many players who choose to move clubs is sometimes brutal - and let's face it, we're all guilty of lamenting the disloyalty of a player from time to time.

However, in professional sport there is, and will only ever be, one party who stays loyal - and that's the fans.  Fans don't change clubs.  Fans don't need to change clubs.  Fans invest their money, their time, their spirit into the team - and that team is bigger than any one player. All fans want is for their players to do the job for their team.

If, and only if, those players aren't doing the job, and the coaching staff aren't doing anything to rectify it, the fans have reason to complain.  But to those that cry themselves to sleep when they read an article in the paper that their favourite player is talking to their most hated club...get over it.  

It's nothing on the stress that player is going through trying to do the right thing by their club, their family and, yes, even you.