In a week's time, the door for NRL players to change clubs immediately will slam shut for the remainder of this season.
In a perfect world, just maybe the NRL would have a proper mid-season trade window set up.
In the world we currently live in, teams are allowed to trade, or ship players elsewhere to another club effective immediately, but only up until June 30.
It means mid-season shuffles are quite rare in the NRL, unlike in other competitions around the world. Just look at the NBA in the USA, or the English Premier League in England.
Mid-season trade windows and deadlines are part of the theatre of those competitions.
Australian sport in general, when you look at it through a broader scope, have never really operated that way.
But there is still the option for players not getting minutes and out of a club's future plans to head elsewhere.
And some surely must be pushing for it.
After scouring the rosters, playing time and the competition in general, here are the five players who it would make more than just a little bit of sense to be knocking on their current head of recruitment's door this week to see if they can find a new one by this time next week.
2. Chris Vea'ila (Cronulla Sharks)
If you want to see something not making a whole lot of sense, it's how the Sharks first failed to retain the signature of the outrageously talented young gun Chris Vea'ila, and then failed to play him at any opportunity.
The centre is going to Perth at the end of the year now and will kill it in the west.
Maybe, in truth, that's why the Sharks are now refusing to play him, although the fact they are in the mix for another push into September, as well as Craig Fitzgibbon's well documented issues with playing young talent over the years do appear to mean more is going on here.
Regardless, Vea'ila who has run for 125 metres per game across 8 NSW Cup performances this year, and is good enough to be playing first-grade.
There are clubs with depth issues in the outside backs who could well be open to a short-term, half season or less deal that gets them through to the end of the campaign.
Can’t fault the selections, Scott, but the big problem is not the lack of a transfer window, it’s the lack of a proper transfer mechanism.
Of PVL wants to do something really useful for the NRL he should stop tinkering with the playing rules, and put his mind to designing a transfer system, getting it reviewed by the fans, the press and the RLPA (who will hate it on principle) and get it it revised and implemented by the end of the season.
Scott – separate comment, unrelated to this article – but I have no other way of contacting you.
Zero Tackle has recently changed its user interface.
One of the changes – and this will be an unanticipated bug – is that when leaving a comment the system will sometimes flush the comment when the author has paused for reflection, part way through entering his text. This never happened before.
Maybe you have introduced AI to assess the quality of the opinions, and delete the ones you think are unworthy of acceptance ! Somehow, I think not
Anyway, this has happened to me three or four times this morning, and I’m drawing it to your attention.
Regards.