In 1956, Phillip K. Dick wrote one of his many acclaimed novels, ‘The Minority Report’; another idea conceived and birthed by the visionary American author well before its’ time.

The novel was made into a critically acclaimed film in 2002, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise.

Dicks’ story centres around a future in which psychics help police predict crime before it happens, which has seen the murder rate drop to zero.

However, in doing so, the PreCrime division opens up numerous cans of worms relating to free will versus determinism, and the ethics pertaining to locking someone away before they actually do anything.

Dick likely knew nothing of the NSWRL or rugby league by the time of his untimely death from a stroke in 1982, aged 53.

However, the man who made so many eerily accurate premonitions of the future could’ve been forgiven for accurately describing the state of the NRL in 2017.

But it is not future crimes against the state that are a becoming a problem in the sport, more so future contracts – or, as it should be recognised, a crime against rugby league.

In recent years, NRL contracts have shown themselves to be as worthless as the paper they’re written on – a players’ word is as strong as stone until he takes a hammer to it himself.

Players to make a mockery of the system in recent years include Daly Cherry-Evans backflipping on his deal with the Gold Coast Titans, and James Tedesco doing the same with the Canberra Raiders.

But the recent trend of future contracts in the NRL has seen clubs similarly unconcerned with the laughing stock the league is disintegrating into.

In 2011, the St. George Illawarra Dragons were left breathing fire over the decision of their star fullback signing for next year, Tim Moltzen, back flipping to stay with his beloved Wests Tigers.

Despite Moltzen being contracted to Wests for 2012, St. George Illawarra were happy to call the player their own for the ’12, ’13 and ’14 seasons, and when the Tigers were unwilling to provide the playmaker with a release, the lawyers were called in.

Saints chief executive officer Peter Doust was happy to sandbag Wests in the media, accusing the team of acting in poor faith, and disrupting his own clubs’ planning for the next season.

“… We strongly believe…matter(s) should be judged on the principles of intent and actions arising in good faith,” Doust said.

However, by the present day, the Dragons’ CEOs’ seemed to have no recollection of his poor experience six years prior, snapping up Brisbane Broncos halfback Ben Hunt on big money from 2018 onwards, almost right at the end of pre-season.

Not only has Doust confined Brisbane to a cruel season long catch-22 involving one of their best players, but he has also defecated in his own backyard, making it clear as possible to the St. George Illawarra locker room and fan base that this will be a year of waiting for their most important player to arrive.

This is not nearly as tragically comical a situation as the hapless Newcastle Knights have created for themselves since announcing their capture of teenage two-game sensation Kalyn Ponga from 2018 onwards, on a deal worth around $3 million over four years, with bonuses.

Coming off a year in which they won 1 game and finished dead last by a country mile, one can only wonder how the 39 currently contracted players will now take the news that they have a new highest paid player – a teenager who will be playing this season with another club.

I am nearly certain it will hit Queensland State of Origin winger Dane Gagai the hardest.

Not only did he have to suffer through being the best player on a historically terrible NRL team, but to add insult to injury, he was pictured crying on the field this year after allegedly being racially abused by a fan after the clubs’ largest loss of all time – 62-0 to the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks.

All his brave toil in 2016 was given a funny sounding “thank you” from Knights chief executive Matthew Gidley, who mentioned to Fox Sports that he was in no rush to re-sign anyone and that players would have to show they deserved a new contract.

“We certainly won’t be in any hurry…we’re hoping all of those players off contract next year give a good account of themselves…if they’re playing really well we’ll look to reward them with a further contract”.

Fortunately for Gagai, the football department he will be aiming to impress apparently regards only 2 solid games as worthy of a multi-million dollar deal.

Having almost exclusively coached the best teams in the league, Broncos head coach Wayne Bennett is no stranger to having his players signed by other clubs for next year, commonly midway through the season.

His usual course of action involves dropping the player in a civil manner, purely for the reason of focusing on the long term. As Ben Hunt has claimed, that will not be the case this time around.

“[Wayne Bennett] knows I’m here to give 100% for this team…he’s assured me he’s going to go with me this year and I’m going to chase a premiership.”

Perhaps “premiership reasons” is the case here – Brisbane's’ premiership window is firmly open and Hunt is no small reason for this being the case.

Or perhaps it’s because Bennett has never been confronted with this extreme of a silly situation he has seen numerous times before, knowing before the season even starts that his start point guard, his quarterback, will not be around the season after.

Stop this, NRL. It’s getting ridiculous.

Comments are closed.