They are under the cap but the sourced third party deals by the club which is illegal is what attracts the players. I’ll take $280,000 a year if I’m also getting $700,000 from a third party deal.
You are right and that is why the comments from Greenberg mean ZERO!. His opinion is based on what he says he knows is a definite..that is the information given to him by the Roosters and what is presented in their books come audit time.
We all know that the bone of contention with the Storm was the fact there were TWO sets of books one common knowledge to the NRL the other not. The NRL were completely oblivious to any wriong doing until someone outside of their heirachy spilled the beans.....
The Roosters can (pardon the pun) crow all they like about being great managers of the cap and the appearance of doing nothing wrong with what they present to the NRL..... it is what goes on behind the scenes and what is not presented to the NRL that is the issue.
This is but one article written after the game that sums up a lot of the general punters frustration and discontent with the way the game is run at the moment. Those at the top unfortunately will see and hear only what they want to........
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/i-...and-over-six-to-go-drama-20191007-p52ya3.html
Within minutes of the post-match presentation, after the Roosters had been handed the premiership trophy for the second year, ARL Commission chairman Peter Beattie headed up the tunnel.
“How fantastic was that?” Beattie beamed. “Just amazing.”
And it was. Cracking game. Amazing grand final. Roosters. Back to back. What a team ...
But what about the six-to-go call that has cost the Raiders any chance of victory? Not so fantastic.
“What are you talking about?” Beattie asked, puzzled.
Ah, the moment with eight minutes remaining when lead referee Ben Cummins signalled six more tackles after ruling a Raiders bomb had come off Roosters fullback James Tedesco?
The moment when five-eighth Jack Wighton allowed himself to be tackled with the ball, believing he had another six tackles up his sleeve - as indicated by Cummins frantically waving his hand above his head?
The moment when the Roosters were handed possession and soon thereafter scored the premiership-winning try at the other end?
I didn’t see that,” Beattie said.
And that, sports fans, is precisely what is wrong with the NRL. The people who run the game are either unaware of the poor officiating that is turning fans away or too proud, too sensitive or too protective of their own jobs to admit to a problem.
They either don’t want to see it or they can’t see it.
“The worst decision in the history of rugby league,” one leading club official, who has seen more footy than most of us, texted me on fulltime. “Things need to change.”
Beattie says he was in a lift going down to the post-match presentations when the incident with Wighton happened and that nobody informed him of the unfolding drama when he got on the field.
Discerning fans are wise enough to understand that "referees have the toughest job in the game"; that we’re "looking for perfection in an imperfect game"; that "as long as people are involved in the decision-making, there will always be human error".
They remember the contentious refereeing decisions from past grand finals, from David Manson allowing Manly fullback Matthew Ridge to play on despite being tackled just before halftime in the 1996 grand final against St George (grrrrr); to Bill Harrigan penalising Balmain’s Bruce McGuire for tapping the ball forward in the 1989 grand final against Canberra; to Darcy Lawler allowing St George winger Johnny King to get up and score in 1963 grand final against Wests, something old Magpies players still talk about.
But the problem is that most people watched matches this season fearing a refereeing decision would decide the outcome. And then one did, in the most important game of the year.
Head of football Graham Annesley, to his credit, keeps fronting the media whenever there’s a contentious call — but the excuses are wearing thin.
After the match, he and referees boss Bernie Sutton were locked in a room in the bowels of ANZ Stadium long after fulltime, poring over an iPad, no doubt trying to find a way to justify the Cummins howler.
The iPad revealed what we all could see and hear on replay: the ball coming off a Canberra player's shoulder, Cummins saying, “Six more tackles” and signalling the restart with his hand, before then correcting it by saying “last tackle” four more times.
Cummins might have corrected his call but, like a drunken midnight text sent to an ex-lover, the message had already been dispatched and there was no way of getting it back. Wighton thought he had another set. We all did.They still got it wrong — even when getting it right.
“But if they had allowed play to go on off an incorrect restart to the tackle count, and the Raiders had scored, I’d still be sitting here and answering why that had been allowed to happen,” Annesley said.
Again, this is what’s wrong with the game. “What if?” is not an excuse for poor refereeing.
What if Cummins had made the correct call in the first place? What if Wighton knew that and instead grubbered into the in-goal — which he was perfectly positioned to do — and got a repeat set?
In a collision sport, played at speed, that type of contact inevitably happens. A penalty would’ve been the common-sense ruling — although given the eagerness of referees to sin-bin players this season it wasn't surprising Cronk was marched.
Pocket referee Gerard Sutton could be heard on the referee mics bellowing “professional foul” as soon as it happened. Cronk’s card had already been marked.
The professional foul debate is a philosophical one, perhaps best explained by the press box argument that erupted as Cronk left the field, much like the one that erupted when Manly forward Jake Trbojevic was sin-binned in the final stages of his side’s semi-final loss to South Sydney.
Cummins’ reversal of his six-to-go decision also raises questions about whether there are too many people in the lead referee's ear. The argument for a return to one referee is getting louder.
So what will happen now? Not much.
Someone will do a review, then there will be a meeting, then there will be a report, then there will be a media conference where Annesley or Greenberg or perhaps Beattie’s replacement, Peter V’landys, will say all the right words pre-written by the NRL's ever-expanding media department.
The game doesn’t need spin. It needs change. It needs common sense to be introduced to all levels of officiating.
As Beattie was leaving the scene of the crime, oblivious that a crime had even been committed, Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was standing in a corner of the dressing-room impersonating a bubbling volcano.
He was holding a can of VB in one hand, with the other hand on his hip. Annesley had attempted to meet with him after the match, but Stuart refused.
“What use was there in speaking to him?” Stuart said, tears of frustration in his eyes. "The damage has been done.”
AND THEN THIS PEARLER
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/if...raiders-amid-controversy-20191006-p52y36.html
If the cap fits, wear it again.
The Roosters, mocked by rival fans for a salary cap sombrero and even getting an endorsement from NRL boss Todd Greenberg this week for their roster management, are back-to-back premiers. They’re the first team to manage the feat in 26 years. Perhaps it won’t be done for another 26 years.Derided for their glamour, this was won with huge amounts of grit and a massive dose – no doses – of good fortune.
It had to be James Tedesco who came up with the winning play, the Dally M and Brad Fittler Medal winner ranging up on the inside after a Daniel Tupou break to break Canberra hearts with seven minutes left.
The Roosters won 14-8 at ANZ Stadium on Sunday night. The scoreline barely told half the story.
Trent Robinson’s side scored just two tries, the first inadvertently helped by the fact the ball ricocheted off a Roosters trainer and the second on the ensuing set after referee Ben Cummins changed a six again call mid play.
It was the pivotal moment. Jack Wighton spotted Cummins signal a repeat set and promptly ran the ball rather than kicking it as the Raiders peppered the Roosters line. But in between Cummins went back to the original last tackle call.
From the next set Latrell Mitchell sent Tupou scampering clear and he only had to have one peep over his shoulder for Tedesco, who capped one of the most memorable individual seasons in the history of the game.
It was horribly harsh on the Raiders, who fought back from 8-0 down early in the game and laid siege to the Roosters’ line for much of the second half.
Yet Ricky Stuart couldn’t quite end the Green Machine’s 25-year title drought as a coach which he started as a player.
In his last game and ninth grand final, Cooper Cronk was sent to the sin bin. Just as he coached his side to victory on the field in last year’s grand final, he delivered one last sermon as he trudged off the field as his team yielded just two points during his absence.
Fittingly, he fell on the ball to end the match. His teammates so exhausted from an entire night holding together the Bondi wall they could barely rise from the turf to celebrate on full-time. The ultimate rugby league robot will now shimmy into the NRL sunset with another one of his own as well as a shoulder blade immortalised in rugby league history, even if he’s eventually not.
For all of Trent Robinson’s foibles, what can’t be faulted is his implicit faith in his senior players. Jake Friend hadn’t played for almost three months and hadn’t completed 80 minutes since round one, but he started from the bench and replaced Zane Tetevano. Robinson pulled a similar trick with Boyd Cordner before the 2013 decider. It worked then and it worked now.
Mal Meninga sounded the horn at the southern end of ANZ Stadium to start the Viking clap, but there was an even bigger (up)roar soon after the game started.
It’s hard to beat the Roosters when they have 13 men, it’s almost impossible when they have 13 man and a trainer.
Travis Touma will go down in grand final folklore for nothing more than minding his own business, a Luke Keary kick rocketing off Sia Soliola’s head and into the NSW physio 10 metres behind play. Why he needed to be standing there? Who knows.
But under the rules of the game the ball is awarded to the team with the territorial advantage for a scrum feed. It just happened the Raiders didn’t touch the ball again before Sam Verrills, whose place in the side was shrouded in mystery all week, scurried over for the first try.
Latrell Mitchell added a penalty goal to extend the Roosters’ lead after Joe Tapine felled Victor Radley high, only for Wighton to crash over 10 minutes later on the back of a rare Tedesco error.
They Roosters lost Mitchell Aubusson to injury and were another man down – albeit temporarily – when Jarrod Croker levelled the match with a penalty goal after Cronk’s indiscretion on Josh Papalii, who bit down on the back of his mouthguard to play 55 minutes straight.
Then came the changed call. Then came Tedesco. Then came back-to-back premiers.
The cap fits perfectly.
SYDNEY ROOSTERS 14 (Sam Verrills, James Tedesco tries; Latrell Mitchell 3 goals) defeated CANBERRA RAIDERS 8 (Jack Wighton try; Jarrod Croker 2 goals) at ANZ Stadium. Referees: Gerard Sutton, Ben Cummins.