GAME ON: The more things change, the more they stay the same in the NRL

It's not as black and white as it sounds, but it was oh-so rugby league. The respective clubs' situations, and the plight of Anthony Seibold and Justin Holbrook, are obviously chalk and cheese but they always are. That's the problem. No two clubs face the same situation but, still, we've seen five coaches axed this season - a record. Only one was in the final year of their present deal.

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Of course coaches being sacked is nothing new but, if there was any year where you expected things to be different, it was this one. It was supposed to be, remember? We were supposed to have turned over a new leaf after facing our own mortality in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic that almost brought about the ruin of the game. In reality, what has really changed in clubland?

This reality hit home this week when a book written by Horsley-based league author and historian Tom Mather lobbed in our inbox. NRL Corona Crisis, written with Gordon Allen, is a quite engrossing day-by-day account of the days before and after the game's shutdown.

It seems so long ago, but what really stands out, poorly is the response of the clubs, in particular the Sydney-based ones, to the crisis. When the game halted it became painfully apparent that, not just the NRL, but its clubs, had come to rely almost wholly and solely on broadcast revenue to fund the entire game.

What did the clubs do when it all went tits-up though? Point the finger at NRL HQ. Unnamed club figures spoke anonymously to media to say they'd warned the game repeatedly that it needed to put aside money for a "rainy day." How did it get this bad? How does the game not own a single asset? 'We warned 'em' they said.

Never mind that conservative estimates on the amount of money clubs have collectively squandered on a revolving door of coaches, CEO's and other staff over the last decade nudges $400 million.

Apart from Brisbane, clubs were running at combined yearly losses in the vicinity of $50 million. Clubs were splurging money in their football departments and being propped by the pokie-dollar of Leagues Clubs. The game had to put a cap on football department spending to stop clubs sending themselves broke on a blind pursuit of success.

The Titans, Dragons, Knights and Tigers had to be saved by the NRL in the previous decade - and that was on top of the grants they received from the broadcast agreement - which were ample. To bring about a stay of his own execution, former ARLC chairman John Grant promised clubs a grant of 130 per cent of the salary cap - $13 million. Knowing the game couldn't afford it, former CEO Todd Greenberg tried to negotiate the figure down and was a dead man walking from that point on.

Its not to suggest Greenberg was blameless. Some very valid and poignant questions were asked about how things were run at NRL HQ, like whether a staff of 140-odd - many on exorbitant executive salaries - was really necessary.

The difference is that change is afoot there. Greenberg was the highest profile casualty of the crisis and Peter V'landys has forecast ruthless pragmatism in the financial stakes going forward. That's at HQ, but what have clubs done since being hauled up off their knees? They've sacked more coaches than in any other season.

Some of the more laughable reports contained in Mather's account from mid-April were of a push from clubs for the NRL to adopt the 'EPL model' which gives clubs a greater say in overall management of the game - but more tellingly around 80 per cent of total revenue.

Given what we've seen from clubs drip-fed half that amount - would you really like to see more money in their hands, to maybe pay three or four coaches to not coach their team?

To answer GAME ON would borrow a phrase from fictional NBC president Russell Dalrymple from Seinfeld: "Why would I give these guys with no experience, and no idea more money."