Furner vows to uphold NRL comp integrity

Project Apollo committee member Don Furner has promised to uphold the integrity of the NRL competition if the game is cleared to return at a meeting with the Australian Rugby League Commission on Thursday.

Despite calls from former stars Paul Gallen and Sam Burgess to scrap competition points and play for an entirely new conference trophy, Canberra CEO Furner has confirmed the NRL Premiership will just be taking a new form.

Furner sits on the NRL’s innovation committee headed by league legend Wayne Pearce, and told AAP teams would be playing for the Provan Summons trophy in 2020.

“Absolutely. That’s the only way you can go. You can’t just come up with another competition,” he told AAP on Wednesday night, saying his preference is for teams to play each other once so the competition doesn’t go into December.

“It isn’t going to be what it was, so we’ve got to make it as authentic as possible.

“That’s why playing each other once, having the semi-finals near enough to where they would have been, trying to keep Origin near enough to where it would have been (is important).

“It would feel very strange to play Origin at the end of the year.

“If it has to, it has to, but trying to maintain that and trying to balance the commercial realities if having a competition without crowds but the expectations of the broadcasters, they’re all moving parts.”

Furner’s comments come after Gallen and Burgess called for the scrapping of competition points, name and trophy if the game restarts with a conference system.

“If the competition can start again I think they should keep the points,” Gallen told Wide World of Sports.

“But if we’re going to a conference system, I don’t think it should be the NRL Telstra Premiership this year – it should be called the Telstra conference champions.

“If the word is true, the winner of the two conferences play each other and whoever wins, that’s the champion.”

Under one proposed format, each team would face each other twice before a four-week finals series, taking the entire season to 18 weeks – not including State of Origin.

“I think the NRL makes a new trophy,” Gallen said.

“It’s got to be. It’s a new system, new conference and new competition.

“Even if they have to play a three grand finals series, I’m open to that.

“(But) I don’t think the premiership trophy that’s been given out, can be given out this year if the team that wins the competition does not play every team in the competition.”

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