So this is where all the Aussies who don't watch sport hang out.
All four of us...

LOL Grim - make that five :)

I do pay slight attention to NRL news and results though, if only to be a socially literate male in a little country town. I even go in the tipping competition, but I rarely watch NRL games or any other 'sport'.

Mind you, I'll probably watch a bit of the real football World Cup that's coming up soon. I played soccer when I was young, so that adds interest I guess - and it's a better game to watch anyway, IMHO ;)

CJ,
You could get a job writing unscripted comments for Gordon Brown.

Xammy, yes I’ve been madly botanising as it is the best time of the year to do it – at the end of a really good wet season. I’m still right into it so OLO is taking a back seat.

GDay CJ. How’re they hangin?

I say phoowey to soccer. I used to be right into it. But I became completely disillusioned by the absurdly low rate of scoring where many games produce only a single goal, and by the utter absurdity of penalties, where a penalty very often decides a game and is very often based on a really dodgy umpiring decision, which means that many games are decided by a single bad call from the ump. This makes soccer a whole lot worse than thugby or Aussie rules, even though it is a better game to watch.

One of the big problems with the NRL salary cap business is the lack of adequate policing. This is a fundamental problem with all manner of laws across our society, for which the police force is just inadequate by a huge margin.

But there should have been no excuse in the NRL. The temptation to cheat is obviously huge, and the means of giving players payments outside of official means and hence outside of the formal salary cap rules are there to be exercised.

Money rules. All it really takes to bend the rules is the cooperation and trust of a small number of people. And so what if the rules ARE bent a little bit, especially if it is common practise?

continued

Then if one of the trusted group turns whistleblower, they are all in deep doo doo. But if there is no whistleblower there is no problem. Is this the current situation with some other NRL clubs…or all other clubs?

I am yet to be convinced that the Storm has done anything seriously outside of the accepted culture… and that there aren’t other clubs that have done similar things, if not quite to the same extent. Sure they broke the rules, but have they broken the unwritten rule of accepted practice?

I’m also yet to be convinced that the NRL ruling body is not culpable in this issue to a very significant extent for not properly policing the whole business or for possibly even leading clubs to think that some bending of the rules is acceptable and that the situation in the real world is somewhat different to the theoretical situation and that which is officially espoused as existing.

No punishment should have been heaped upon the Melbourne Storm until a thorough examination of the whole business had been conducted.

Ludwig is simply describing the real world of big business.

Anyone remember the Australian-Chinese fellow jailed for conducting normal business practices between China and its 'trading partners'?

Another casualty... meanwhile his employer has abandoned him, and our government shrugs its shoulders (our shoulders?) as if it/we had nothing to do with them either.

What did Ned say?