With the ongoing dispute between the RLPA and ARLC over the next CBA coming ever closer to the start of the season, the players are beginning to take action.
Cronulla was the first side to act by boycotting an NRL media shoot, whilst the Dragons and Knights are following suit.
Sharks’ captain and RLPA board member Wade Graham admitted on SEN 1170 Breakfast that “everything was on the table” for the players but shot down the idea of a lockout – effectively stopping the start of the NRL season.
The players have been very vocal in their demands and their frustrations with the game’s administrators, leading SEN’s Matt White to believe they are trying to persuade the fans to be on their side.
“This is a two-sided debate, this is us versus them, have the players convinced you here? Because that’s what they’re trying to do,” White said SEN 1170 Mornings.
“They’re trying to put pressure on the NRL, they’re saying, ‘We’re not going to be a part of NRL media, we’re going to take this action, we’re not going to do what you want us to do to promote the game’.
“The back and forth of negotiations, (it) happens every day in business it’s happening right now in a very public game.”
Although the players voices have been heard on a regular basis, White questioned why the NRL has remained relatively quiet when discussing the CBA negotiations.
“Have you heard from the NRL in this? No, why?, because they don’t have to say anything, they threw the biggest grenade they had before Christmas,” White said.
“Which was, ‘Guess what, we’re going to publicly announce an increase in the salary cap’, so they lobbed that out there and they landed it on the front page of the paper, which put them in the box seat of this argument.”
The players will continue to take action in a bid to have the CBA sorted before the season starts on the first weekend of March.