The NRL and Rugby League Players Association are confident pay negotiations won’t descend into a deadlock similar to that crippling Australian cricket, despite the latest snag.

A scheduled two-day meeting between the two parties ended after just three hours on Tuesday, when it was made clear the league wouldn’t agree to the RLPA’s push for a revenue-share model.

RLPA representatives Cameron Smith and James Maloney used the State of Origin camp platform to criticise NRL boss Todd Greenberg for not attending the negotiations.

RLPA chief executive Ian Prendergast on Wednesday again denied claims the players’ representatives had walked out on the NRL.

“We worked through all the items on the agenda before shaking the NRL’s representatives’ hands before leaving,” Prendergast told Sky Sports Radio.

“On our analysis, on the NRL’s current offer, they have the players going backwards.”

Key to Wednesday’s meeting was the RLPA’s offer to take contras and leagues club funding out of the revenue share, as well as the option to secure the NRL’s $120 million investment in its new digital arm.

Effectively, the union claim, it would make the digital investment a profit-only share.

“The ball’s in their court,” Prendergast said.

“We believe we have made significant concessions which have shifted our proposal dramatically.”

Fourteen players including Canterbury’s Moses Mbye, Cronulla’s James Segeyaro and Sydney Roosters’ Aidan Guerra attended the sit down with NRL chief operating officer Nick Weeks.

Despite the stalemate, a frustrated Guerra said Tuesday’s meeting would only have been worthwhile if the revised RLPA offer was taken back to NRL and clubs for consideration.

“You go to negotiations hoping that there is going to be some sort of a little result, and yesterday we didn’t quite get that,” he said on Wednesday.

“We’re hoping they can take the proposal forward to clubs and Todd Greenberg and they can make a call and come back to us.”

Prendergast remains adamant, however, that rugby league can avoid any repeat of the bitter dispute which has resulted in some 230 Australian cricketers being unemployed after a June 30 deadline to strike a deal with Cricket Australia (CA) passed.

Revenue sharing is also central to that dispute with CA trying to take that system away from players in a new memorandum of understanding.

“We’re ahead of certainly where the cricketers are at the moment,” he said.

“We don’t want to end up in a situation like that, which is why we’re working extremely hard to progress it in a timely manner.”

Meanwhile the NRL sided in that confidence, and said the two parties would organise a return to the table shortly.