An end-of-season trade window coupled with an external draft is firmly on the agenda as the NRL explores a new player transfer model to benefit the game from the grassroots to international level.
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While speculation about whether Daly Cherry-Evans would renege on a deal to leave Manly for Gold Coast at the end of the season has sparked almost universal condemnation of the Round 13 rule allowing a player's existing club to continue negotiations after he has signed elsewhere, the NRL is looking at the transfer issue in far greater depth.
In announcing a review of the Round 13 rule this week, NRL chief executive Dave Smith also revealed he had asked new head of strategy Shane Richardson to investigate a draft as part of his blueprint for the game after the next broadcast deal in 2018, including expansion of the competition.
It remains to be seen whether Richardson recommends a rookie draft, an external draft for any player outside the NRL - possibly including those in the State Cups and Super League - or an internal draft, which seems unlikely, but there will only be minor alterations made for next season as his focus is far broader and any change has to be negotiated with the Rugby League Players Association.
"At this stage, we haven't been asked by the NRL to consider a transfer window or any other changes and we would have to canvas our members before supporting or rejecting any change to the current system because the players and the clubs are probably the two biggest stakeholders in this rule," RLPA president Clint Newton said.
However, Newton made it clear the RLPA would be prepared to consider any proposal and pointed out that the Round 13 rule wasn't introduced seven years ago to provide players with a "cooling off period" after signing with a rival club but to give to a player's existing club a greater opportunity to retain his services.
The rule was bought in after criticism of the previous June 30 deadline for players to sign with rival clubs as deals were being announced as early as 12.01am on July 1, but negotiations are now beginning earlier - leading to growing frustration over players committing elsewhere up to a year before their contracts expire.
"It is just a silly system," Melbourne chief executive Mark Evans said. "It treats players like children and it is patronising to them, as if they don't know their own mind.
"I am not blaming the players, that is the system that they have but the fans hate it and the players don't like it so let's just put a date on it - sometime quite late in the season or at the end of the season - and say you can negotiate at any time but you can't sign a contract before then and once you do that's it, you honour it and there is no cooling off period."
TRANSFER WINDOWS
Sea Eagles chief executive Joe Kelly was group financial controller for Premier League giants Chelsea from 2002 to 2007 and he believes an end of season transfer system would also be beneficial for the NRL.
"I think there is a need for us to review the current system and look at an end of season transfer window," Kelly said. "That gives you a finite time to address any transfers and ultimately I think that reduces the speculation.
"From what I see here, the issue is that this continues to drag on well into the season and it is never ending really. But there are some complexities in our situation in that we have got a salary cap whereas the Premier League don't so I think that what is required is for all of the stakeholders of our game to engage and workshop this."
Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett said he had been pushing for a transfer window for five years.
"All the games that have their acts together have got trading periods. It's pretty simple, I don't see what's complex about it," Bennett said.
" You just have to be strong enough as an administrator to make a hard decision that's not going to please everybody. Who they need to please are the fans. At the end of the day, the fans suffer the most. There's no doubt that at clubs, it's a distraction, in day-to-day life and in your season."
DRAFT
It is widely agreed that an internal draft would be difficult to implement in the NRL but an external draft or rookie draft could have benefits and save clubs about $20 million per year in spending on players in under-20s and junior representative teams.
"I would start with a rookie draft, it would save a huge amount of money that you could invest in the game," said Evans, who was previously the CEO of London Harlequins rugby union club. "It would underpin rugby league heartlands that will never have NRL teams, it could underpin the country and underpin areas like the Central Coast and the Sunshine Coast.
"Kids wouldn't have to leave home and I think it would actually take away a lot of the issues that rugby league has, free up a huge amount of resources that the game could re-invest into its grassroots and wipe out a lot of social problems that frankly the game needs to address."
But Newton said players had opposed an internal draft in court more than 20 years ago and would need to be convinced of the merits for introducing one now.
"The welfare of young players most certainly must be considered and we question whether a rookie draft is in their best interests," he said. "As in all areas of the game we will consider any proposal put to us by the NRL but in relation to a player draft it can't be forgotten that we fought hard a number of years ago to have it struck out because it is fundamentally a restraint of trade."
OTHER OPTIONS
Leading player agent Wayne Beavis, who has managed Jarryd Hayne's move from Parramatta to NFL's San Francisco 49ers, revealed that he had previously asked a club to strike out the Round 13 clause after one of his clients signed with a rival club.
"I don't know what all of the fuss is about," Beavis said. "The only club the player can go to is his incumbent club, he can't break the contract he has signed with the other club to go to a different club so all you need to do is ask the incumbent club to write a letter saying they don't want to invoke the Round 13 clause and you lodge that with his contract."
However, leading agent George Mimis said the NRL needed to "overhaul the whole system with something that is more contemporary".
"I think they could probably remove Round 13 as a key date without causing too much flow on to other aspects but the transfer system itself needs to be much more holistic, rather than focus on one aspect or another," Mimis said.
"That could include issues from the grassroots up such as who funds the grassroots, how it is funded, where the pathways lead, if you have open slather [player movement] or an external draft."
