The NRL is making moves to stamp out coach poaching, but it is hard to understand why they want to mess with a good thing.
What does the NRL intend to do?
They suggest that they will suspend coaches who sign with a club other than the one for which they work when they still have a year or more on their contracts.
What is good about the coaching merry-go-round?
It was in some instances more entertaining than the play on the ground and when it happened during the off-season, it added an element of suspense that was the source of much discussion.
The Wayne Bennett saga was one of the best.
Bennett is from Brisbane, or thereabouts, at least. He liked coaching the Broncos. He has produced impressive results and would have liked to finish up there, yet for lack of a measly one-year extension, he will be lost to Brisbane and will take the reins of South Sydney.
The Rabbitohs’ coach, Anthony Seibold, will swap jobs with Bennett.
Ivan Cleary joined Penrith with two years left on his contract with Wests.
The current setup in the NRL for players is that they cannot enter into contract talks with another club until they are in the final year of a contract. The NRL would like to do the same thing with coaches.
Other professional leagues prohibit any talk of shifting from one club to another during the season, but the NRL seems to be fine with that, even though it is a distraction to anyone involved.
The thing that might push the proposal out of the scrum and over the line is the prospect of clubs being heavily fined for breaching the proposed regulation.
Couple fines of that nature with the more routine salary cap breach fines and NRL rugby could soon find owners talking to others of the well-heeled set about buying a used NRL franchise.
