By MICHAEL BYRNES
THERE’s no such thing as loyalty anymore in rugby league. The thing is, there probably never was.
Supermarket chains like to advertise their chicken meat as being hormone-free. Of course, this is just a clever marketing ruse — no one is selling chickens reared on growth hormones and haven’t for a very long time. But it’s a successful marketing ruse because the public believes it, for whatever reason. The fallacy that loyalty is a valued characteristic of rugby league players and clubs comes straight out of the same playbook. It works great in press releases and media stories, it plays well with the public, but no one negotiating their next NRL contract gives it a moment’s thought.
David Klemmer has either asked the Bulldogs for a release from the final three years of his current contract – or he hasn’t. At this stage, it’s impossible to be more precise than that. One thing we can be precise about is that whichever alternative is true, loyalty has nothing to do with it.
In most rugby league contexts, loyalty has bugger-all to do with anything. I’m sure there are isolated cases where a club has helped a player out, either financially or emotionally and that player has thought to himself if they offer me a deal next time around, I’m taking it. Sure that’s loyalty but it would be the exception (continued below)
If David Klemmer is asking for an early release, that has nothing to do with loyalty or lack of it. It probably has a lot to do with his manager accepting a dud long-term deal. But when the shoe is on the other foot, and a club feels they’ve got a player chewing up cap space that’s no longer in step with their performance, they move heaven and earth to rectify that. Loyalty is never a factor, except in PR departments.
In 2016, Laurie Daley made a big song and dance that he’d pick Robbie Farah from reserve grade to play Origin if Jason Taylor carried out his threat to have Farah playing NSW Cup that year. That’s how much loyalty meant to Laurie — and it apparently went both ways. However, just twelve months later, Peter Wallace was slated to be NSW hooker, until injured right before the team was announced, and so Nathan Peats got the gig. Robbie Farah was still playing first grade at the Rabbitohs. He must have done some pretty horrible things in those twelve months to destroy the loyalty that Laurie had. Either that, or the loyalty never actually existed.
Maybe what Laurie meant when he said he’d pick Farah from reserve grade is that if he was still performing as the best NSW-eligible hooker in the competition, but for some inexplicable reason was playing reserve grade, he’d still pick him for NSW. Or in slightly different words, it never had anything to do with loyalty, only with Robbie’s performance on the field.
Loyalty never entered into the equation and where NRL contracts and selections are concerned, it probably never has.
