The 2018 NRL season may be just over a month away, but there's never a quiet moment in rugby league with The Repeat Set delivering your weekly dose of insight.
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Controversy surrounds Cronulla Sharks' potential new CEO
The Christmas good cheer has well and truly faded down Cronulla way as tension levels rise over the Sharks’ drawn-out delivery of a new CEO.
Three months after Lyall Gorman vacated the job – and just six weeks before the 2018 season kicks-off – the Cronulla board cannot agree on who should take the helm.
The Repeat Set understands there are only two candidates remaining – former Cronulla star Barry Russell and ex-Carlton and Crows AFL boss Steven Trigg.
Our sources in the Shire tell us some board members are ‘besotted’ with Trigg and want him installed despite him having zero experience in the political hot-bed that is the NRL while possessing a controversial AFL past.
Trigg was sacked by Carlton in October, five years after departing the Adelaide Crows after he was found guilty of salary cap rorting and draft tampering.
He was fined $50,000 and suspended for six months for those offences.
When he linked with Carlton in 2014, former Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett said: “Cheating the salary cap ..what could be worse?
“On my standard of governance, he would have been sacked and unable to work again in the AFL because it was such a blatant abuse of the rules.”
Still, some at the Sharks apparently prefer Trigg to Russell, who played 76 games for the club between 1985-1991, winning the 1988 Rothmans Medal.
Russell has built an impressive business portfolio since his playing days, spending almost a decade overseeing 350 staff as Harvey Norman’s group sales manager following 12 years as the NRL’s commercial sponsorship manager.
“Barry has great commercial nous, business acumen, key links to the NRL - and there's a view that the Sharks failed to capitalise commercially post-2016,” a Sharks insider told us.
“He is an extremely popular figure in the area, he understands the need to invest in the junior league and has a great passion and love for the club.
“Why would they be looking anywhere else, especially at a candidate with no rugby league background?
“Trigg has also been linked to the Adelaide United CEO’s job, so where do his loyalties lie?
“Appointing Barry is a no-brainer.”
It's anticipated that either Trigg or Russell will be appointed over the next fortnight.
Board election dramas nearing end at Canterbury
He’s doing his best to steer clear of it but new Canterbury coach Dean Pay can’t wait for the club’s acrimonious board elections to be done and dusted.
The two warring factions – the current Ray Dib-led board and the Lynn Anderson-driven Reform ticket – go head-to-head for control of the club on February 11 after a nasty campaign full of accusations, back-stabbing, sniping and legal action.
Pay just wants the focus back on football asap.
“Dean has done a great job in lifting the morale of players and staff at Canterbury and it’s a really happy place now,” one Bulldogs spy told us.
“The only negative headlines have been about the board elections and the sooner that is sorted the better.
“Dean’s all about the footy – he doesn’t care for the off-field politics.”
T-Rex's lifeline won't turn into a noose - just yet
Parramatta is saying it will let the Tony Williams mid-range DUI case run its course in court before deciding what to do with the troubled back-rower.
But some connected with the club want to make T-Rex extinct regardless of the outcome after he dragged the Eels into unwanted controversy just weeks after they threw him a lifeline.
Gutho rumours won't go quietly
The rumours just won’t disappear that Clint Gutherson is dead keen for a return to Manly.
The Sea Eagles would have loved to have the local junior back in the maroon and white in 2018, but any chance of that happening ended when the club hit salary cap dramas.
Looks for Gutho to return to the northern beaches in 2019.
Ex-international in tough spot
There are concerns for the mental health of one ex-international who has been very outspoken about the goings on at his former club.
Those close to him fear he is being used as a puppet and doesn’t believe half the things he’s been saying.