It takes a club
several years to build a team capable of winning a premiership, carefully
moulding combinations and developing the cohesion required to enact a
title-winning game plan. But in the
current NRL climate, where the salary cap is the highest law and the bottom
line, each victorious grand final side is dismantled in the space of a few
seasons. Premierships lead to
representative rewards, necessitating contract upgrades for young stars, and
the inevitable purging of players to fit under the cap.
The salary cap has
undeniably created a more even competition – nine different premiers in the
past decade is testament to the NRL’s unpredictability and part of its subsequent
appeal. The only club to win more than
one title in the last ten years – Melbourne – was found to have blatantly
breached the salary cap during their golden period and was stripped of both
premierships.
The Panthers are one
of the most pertinent examples of the difficulty in keeping a victorious grand
final squad together. After Penrith won
the 2003 NRL title, Luke Lewis, Luke Rooney, Trent Waterhouse and Joel Clinton
won immediate Kangaroo selection, Rhys Wesser and Ben Ross made their Origin
debuts the following season, while Joe Galuvao and Paul Whatuira became Kiwi
Test regulars. The resultant contract
upgrades required to hang on to the new rep stars – from pre-existing incentive
clauses or simply increased market value – saw the squad gradually
disintegrate. Astonishingly, by 2009
only Lewis and Waterhouse remained at the Panthers from the 2003 grand final 17
– seven were with rival NRL clubs, three in Super League, two with rugby union
sides, while the remaining three had retired.
After reaching the preliminary final in 2004, the Panthers went on a
top-eight hiatus, finally returning to the finals in 2010 with a new-look side.
It was a similar
story for 2006 premiers Brisbane, whose grand final side was ravaged by rival
clubs and codes over the ensuing few seasons.
The Broncos had traditionally been the competition benchmark for
retaining the nucleus of their squad – eight players who played in either the
1992 or 1993 grand finals were still with the club during the 1997 or 1998
premiership seasons, while six players (plus injured regular Petero Civoniceva)
from the 2000 grand final-winning squad partook in the club’s 2006 grand final
celebrations. But in 2010, only captain
Darren Lockyer, brilliant centre Justin Hodges and dynamic forward Sam Thaiday
remained at Red Hill from the decider four years earlier, and the perennial
pacesetters missed the finals for the first time since 1991.
The Bulldogs’
victorious 2004 side was also rapidly picked apart – when veteran fullback Luke
Patten departed for the European Super League at the end of 2010, only skipper
Andrew Ryan remained at Canterbury. Only
six of Newcastle’s grand final side of 2001 played for the club in 2006, 14 of
the Roosters’ 2002 grand final squad had departed after just four subsequent
seasons, while Manly’s 2008 premiership side had already lost seven players by
the time the 2010 season rolled around.
While Melbourne’s
flaunting of the salary cap rules between 2006 and 2010 kept the club’s crack
squad together temporarily (ten players appeared in both of the Storm’s 2007
and 2009 grand final victories), the NRL’s severe reaction to the breaches forced
the Storm to disband their successful squad swiftly. Just six members of the club’s 2009 grand
final side fronted up in Melbourne for the 2011 pre-season.
2005 premiers Wests
Tigers are the exception to the recent rule.
Unquestionably the least-heralded squad to win an NRL title when they
defeated North Queensland 30-16 in the 2005 decider, the Tigers fielded eight
members of that grand final side during the 2010 season – the next time the
club qualified for the finals.
Imminent salary cap
increases and concessions may alleviate the modern trend slightly. But the even nature of the NRL is one of its
strongest drawcards – and the high turnover of playing rosters is an
unavoidable product of maintaining the status quo. A repeat of St. George’s dominance of the
1950s and 1960s is virtually impossible – which is not necessarily a negative
outcome – but it will take equally large portions of loyalty, luck and good
management for an NRL club to replicate even Parramatta’s three-peat of the
early-1980s. The days of a club
dominating for several seasons, as Melbourne’s demise in 2010 proves, are over.
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