Melbourne Storm skipper Cameron Smith says other sports view rugby league’s mid-season signings as a “joke” and is united with his coach Craig Bellamy supporting calls for an NRL draft.
The situation has come to a head again just two weeks into the season after St George Illawarra star Beau Scott revealed he’d signed a four-year deal to join his former coach Wayne Bennett at Newcastle from 2013.
Bennett described the current signings process as “diabolical” and said the Knights were only doing the same as every other NRL club.
South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson and his Canterbury counterpart Todd Greenberg both called for the NRL to again review the possibility of a player draft.
Kangaroos captain-in-waiting Smith and Bellamy said it was the only way to go.
“I think we need to bring a draft in, it’s fair for everyone,” said Smith after Sunday night’s 24-10 win over South Sydney.
“In other sports it’s spoken about as a bit of a joke the way we sign players mid-season and they’ve got to play a whole competition season knowing they’re going to be leaving in the next year.”
The draft concept was crushed back in 1991 when Terry Hill challenged the system in the High Court as a restraint of trade after he was drafted by Eastern Suburbs.
Bellamy said he’d long believed the draft, which is successfully used by the AFL, was a good idea.
Last year Bellamy’s Storm centre Beau Champion signed with Gold Coast in May, with months of the season to run.
“I think we should have a draft, I’ve thought that for a long time,” he said.
“We’re about evening out the game and that’s one way of doing it.
“I know there’s some negatives to it as well with guys brought up in one area having to go somewhere else and play.
“But at the same time I think guys going to another club, when they have to play the whole year or half the year at the club they’re at before they leave, I don’t think that’s good for our game.
“It’s what we’ve been used to for so long and I think we’re a bit blase.
“I suppose this Beau Scott thing has brought it up again.
“I’ve always been a fan of the draft. It’s not my decision but that’s my opinion.”
