NRL considering coach poaching rules

NRL CEO Todd Greenberg has revealed that the league will consider rules surrounding coach poaching and has backed Manly to remain in the competition.

The Sea Eagles have recently come under scrutiny, due to a mixture of poor results and coach Trent Barrett's decision to walk away from the club at the end of the season.

Along with ex-Panthers coach Anthony Griffin's messy departure from Penrith, The Barrett saga has created a coaching circus that has led to the support of creating protocols to restrict poaching of the clipboard carriers.

And it is an idea that Greenberg resonates with.

“I’m open to talk to the clubs about those sorts of things,” Greenberg told The Sydney Morning Herald. 

“There’s contract law at play with these sorts of issues, whether it’s in rugby league or elsewhere. The reality is it’s given members of the media weeks of very rich content to talk about.

“As we sit here today, what happened at Penrith is the assistant coach took over from the head coach. Now there has been a lot of innuendo and talk around that, but that’s the reality of what we face today. I’d be happy to talk to the clubs about that if that’s something of interest to talk about because ultimately we’re the game.

“My view is we want to protect the game as much as we can. If we can do that by putting in additional rules and regulations in place, we will look at it.”

Greenberg added that despite having a poor season, the Sea Eagles were well placed to bounce back in 2019.

“They are having a really difficult year, there is no doubt about that," he said.

“But if you look forward they have got a really good playing roster, a relatively new chief executive who comes with a lot of experience and I would imagine they will have a very busy off-season preparing themselves for 2019 to make sure when Manly fans turn up next year they have some real hope for the club.