Rugby League Coaching Manuals

By Paul Malone, Fox Sports - David Gallop has some good news and some sobering news for financially extended NRL players worrying about whether they can afford their loan repayments and that new sports car. The NRL competition will be able to afford the current $4.1 million salary cap this year and next, the NRL chief executive forecast on Monday.

But Gallop says he had been misreported recently in guaranteeing that the NRL would step in to keep any financially buried Sydney clubs afloat during the global economic crisis.

"I didn't quite say that. We would have to look at the extent of the trouble they are in and the impact on the competition strategically, but we don't have a blank cheque," he said.

"I said at that time that no club is expendable - we have to provide eight games a round for television."

Gallop said the NRL generally receive quarterly reports from clubs and maintained the right to "look into things at any time when we have a concern".

"But we are in the good position where about 80 per cent of the game's revenue is locked in with television and our major new-media sponsorship with Telstra," he said.

"The current economic downturn makes maintaining the salary cap system more important than ever."

Australia's elite footballers in all codes have as much reason as the rest of us in the national workforce to be wary of the effects of the GEC.

Of Australia's four big football codes, rugby union, which has already persuaded players why they need to take a cut in their Test match payments, is the one with the most immediate headache in signing a new television rights deal, which expires at the end of next year.

The AFL has three more years to run in its $780 million, five-year television agreement. Rugby league's television deal, worth about $500 million over six years, expires at the end of 2012; Football Australia's contract with Fox Sports is until 2013.

When the depression turned especially feral in 1933, even Babe Ruth, America's most famous sportsman, was forced to agree to take a 35 per cent paycut from the New York Yankees.

"He squealed, but not too loudly," wrote author Leigh Montville in his Ruth biography The Big Bam.

In 1930, Ruth, tired of criticism over the size of his pay cheque, was asked by a reporter what he thought of his yearly salary of $US80,000 ($A124,130) being $5000 more than President Hoover's. His famous reply was: "I know, but I had a better year than Hoover."

It's less than two years since Willie Mason started explosive talk about strike action during the State of Origin series if NRL players weren't paid more. Gallop invited player representatives to look carefully at the NRL's financial books and Test captain Darren Lockyer, concerned about the defection of star players which continued last year, left the meeting reasonably content that players were being paid fairly.

The NRL's next player retention battlefront features Benji Marshall and Karmichael Hunt. Brisbane have made Hunt an offer. That's not to say it's the offer he wanted.

How the Hunt negotiations go will be a factor in what the Broncos can offer Lockyer for 2010.

Gallop said he believed the salary cap of $4.1 million, which requires clubs to pay players at least $3.69 million, was sustainable this year and next.

"The cap is up $100,000 this year and so is the club grant (from the NRL)," Gallop said.

"There is no decision yet on (what the salary cap will be) next year. We will look at the financial position and it (the decision) is part of our collective bargaining arrangement with the Players' Association."

Broncos boss Bruno Cullen was reported last Sunday as saying the NRL's biggest-drawing club was vulnerable if economic factors strike clubs at the ticket window.

This could well be the year that the NRL's calculated gamble with a live television double-header on Friday nights really affects match attendances and the Broncos rarely play at any time other than Friday nights.

"But the compelling thing is you can make a difference to your team's chances by being part of the home crowd and barracking. I'm confident that won't be changed by the economic downturn - it's affordable entertainment with a rich working class tradition," Gallop said.

These are worrying, but opportunistic times for footballers either coming off contract or facing more unusual complications.

One Sunday newspaper had Todd Carney, for instance, considering a future in the NFL. He was even pictured with a gridiron ball in his hands. Quick, get out the chequebook.

Another paper the same day had him mulling over a chance to play for the Atherton Roosters.

As the Babe would have said, it's important to have your bases covered.