Impact of the COVID-19 suspension on the NRL

Discussion in 'The Cesspit: Rugby League Discussion' started by morgieb, Mar 23, 2020.

  1. morgieb MC Burridge

    Was somewhat touched on in the main thread, but given the circumstances around the virus and the suspension of the competition it probably needs its own thread.

    There has been lots and lots of talk about how the NRL only has enough money to last them three months. I strongly suspect this suspension will go on until September/October, so in that case it could be RIP NRL.

    I think it won't get to that level, but you do have to wonder what the collateral damage will be. At the very least, I can see some clubs going broke.

    So what do you think will happen to the comp if/when it does come back?
     
  2. Lukic L Popovic

    Government fucked it taking too long for a lockdown. We should've banned flights from China in December (should be banned period tbh) and locked our borders down by mid-Feb, with a shutdown of everything in the country at the start of March.

    Now it's just a matter of hoping that our hospitals don't get flooded. NSW govt. should absolutely be using places like the SFS to build temporary hospitals because if this ends up remotely like Italy, thousands will be dying without adequate treatment.

    I think the league will be fine ftr. Government will step in and payment freezes/pay cuts for the players for the time being will keep the clubs afloat. Maybe one or two could shit themselves (Manly or Cronulla) but otherwise should be fine. Play likely resuming in June/July would maybe mean everyone plays everyone once and finals after 15 games?
     
    Paddy likes this.
  3. Maroon_Faithful M Faithful

    Only way Parra were gonna finish the season on top. lol

    Seriously tho, this could be worse than the SL war.
     
  4. Julian BJ Taylor

    I’d say in time the salary cap will be downgraded accordingly and all players will take a cut percentage wise. Sucks for them but not as much as most others. Nation wide the financial hit will possibly take more people than the virus itself medium term imo.
     
  5. Toolman TR Man

    It will only last 3 months. There's no way they're keeping things closed for too long. China started reopening things after 2 months. Trump is already saying we can't let the cure be worse than the disease and he'll make a decision on that in 2 weeks, and we all know whatever he does we will probably end up copying eventually. Everything will be shutdown for 2 months and then they will gradually reopen some things, namely allowing domestic travel for business which means the NRL can proceed without crowds again... which they will do because even if they lose money on that, it allows a proper season so that they can go back to making money when crowds can come back in about 4-5 months time... otherwise they make nothing all year.
     
  6. Magic AJ Parker

    The National Rugby League and all clubs will go into administration.

    Then a new sporting organisation will be created called the National Rugbha Lehg with 16 clubs such as the Synda Chooks, Cantabarah Dogs & Manlah Seagulls.
     
  7. Lukic L Popovic

    ok boomer
     
    Hurricane likes this.
  8. Hurricane JD Hurricane

    I wonder if "OK boomer" has become so widespread you can now use a generic insult to even a young person who is a bit conservative.

    I spent six months with other league fans on another message board all off season looking forward to this 2020 season. Nonetheless the right call has been made and even playing the first two rounds was foolish. An example of common sense ruling the day instead of logic.
    Note I don't equate common sense with logic.
    The logical decision was to call it off before round one. Common sense said there was no real danger so why give in to a virus.

    They exposed all of those players to catching the virus and the players union could sue if they wanted to.
     
  9. Alex AJ O'Driscoll

    Ok boomer
     
  10. Alex AJ O'Driscoll

    Given how dumb the players are they were better off having to isolate and train, will run rampant amongst NRL players now.
     
    Paddy likes this.
  11. Boobidy BJ Gemmell

    Corona the beer is more dangerous to most of the players. It's a fucking flu. Send them to a town, isolate them from the public and play the games. Should be a 4 week break. Send them to the town now, isolate 14 days and test every player, then a week to get some fitness back in and start round 3.
     
  12. Maroon_Faithful M Faithful

    Im far from a fan of Scomo, and though theyve made mistakes, and though their edicts are somewhat flawed or contradictory, i think theyre handling this reasonably well.

    Same goes for the Qld state government.

    I dont think many could argue its possible to stray too far from the line theyve taken in either direction without inviting more problems than you're attempting to solve.

    My biggest criticism would be their economic policies but im happy to give them latitude on that. The worst policy decisions always come at a time of national disaster/crisis.

    I look around the world at a time like this and see what other countries are doing and i just thank god we live in a place like this.

    Theyve made testing a top priority, though not soon enough for my liking, but for that i'd say im reasonably happy.
     
  13. Tartmaster AJ James

    I would argue they aren't making the testing a top priority.
    I mean, I understand that the tests are scarce on the ground, but I know multiple people with friends/family who have had direct contact with confirmed cases, and then shown the symptoms that have been refused tests and basically told they're fine.
    Which then relies on those people being sensible and not going out and spreading it.

    I think they've handled it very poorly from the start, everything they've done has been reactionary, self-contradicting and showing a complete disregard for the people.
    And Scomo has been every bit the festering shit-weasel that everyone expected him to be.

    So what we're left with is wildly incorrect numbers, confused people falling into extreme panic or "it's just a flu" idiocy, and a government that cares more about haircuts than actually stopping the virus
     
  14. Lukic L Popovic

    I tend to agree with MF. The NSW government absolutely fucked it with the cruises. Take them out of the equation and our situation is even better. I find it hilarious that Berejiklian is always immune from criticism in the media (because she's a woman, let's be real) on all the crises when she's far more responsible for them than Morrison.

    I do think we could've acted more decisively earlier - the minute reports of COVID19 were coming out of China (November/December) and when Taiwan alerted the WHO and the world that this was an issue, flights from China should've been immediately stopped. Every country should've. Instead, we continued to take in 43 flights a day, multiple with infected people while China was telling the world that it wasn't transmitted from person to person (by that point they'd already had at least a few hundred thousand cases lol).

    I think we're going to continue to trend the way we have and perhaps have a couple hundred deaths (which given the majority of people dying are in their late 80s/90s and have underlying illnesses, is fuck all - the flu will take more). We probably won't be able to properly open up until July without a cure/vaccine, but if things can tick along as they have it's not the worst thing in the world. Once enough people have gotten it in the first instance, we could even trend towards herd immunity for the young population if there's data which shows you don't get re-infected, there's not a high incidence rate of long-term issues and people can develop the required antibodies to fight it.

    China sickens me though. Fuck them, seriously. Their citizens raided foreign countries for supplies, including Australia, sent it back to China and have lead to shortages. They then release the virus to all fucking parts of the world and their propaganda machine starts telling people that it's America's fault and they're donating things when the truth is their selling testing kits, ventilators and other important medical supplies at exorbitant prices. The best part is more than half of these things aren't even working!

    Then the grand plan is for them to buy distressed/depressed assets in all these countries. Just watch how much property and how many companies Chinese investors (i.e. CCP pawns) are going to buy in Australia because of the economic crash. Ugh.
     
  15. Boobidy BJ Gemmell

    I don't understand the hate for old ScoMo. He has done a good job from what I have seen. We aren't in complete lock down like some countries, which is saving from an even worse economic disaster. As usual the loudest people are the moron minority who are screaming about Scotty being horrible for the country, but they only have solutions in hindsight. Not shutting the borders earlier is a big one I'm hearing(which he should have), but 80% of these people would have called him a racist if he shut down the borders when he should have, which was as soon as a report came from China. He is getting the Trump treatment at the moment.
     
  16. stupersteve03 SJ Cambridge

    There are gaps for sure. ScoMo doing better then he did with the fires at least...

    Qld has a really good per capita testing rate comparitivley.

    I think we have moved a bit slower than I would like. I work in health care, in psychology, and we could be working from home by now if the government was more proactive with its telehealth provisions. Instead I am in an office with a number of staff everyday and a constant stream of clients.
     
  17. Tartmaster AJ James

    Better than the fires isn’t a high bar with scomo, it just means he didn’t flee the country at the first sign of trouble.
     
  18. Lukic L Popovic

    The bushfires aren't really his fault either. Going overseas was terrible move lol, if not for anything other than image purposes. However, rural fire services are a state government function. The fact NSW and Victoria were significantly under prepared isn't really a federal government fault. This country's insistence with "hazard reduction" is pretty crazy given there's significant evidence that:

    1) it doesn't work;
    2) out of control bushfires will happen regardless;
    3) it causes greater health issues over the long-term than a hard to contain fire would in the short-term

    You can argue that he should've deployed the army earlier and used federal resources for the transporting of people/collection of water to douse the fires but again, the federal government's hands are tied by the extent to which the rural fire services of each respective state has prepared.

    With the amount of donations that have been received we better build irrigation systems inside high risk areas so they're prepared for bushfires and can be taken out early. I don't know why ideas like the Bradfield Scheme don't have greater support either. That guy was one of the few people from 100 years ago that actually knew what he was doing. Brisbane Bridge and Harbour Bridge were designed by him generations ago and are still in use and effective. Meanwhil the NSW state government decided to build a fucking tram in the middle of Sydney which takes 50 minutes to move 3 suburbs, is expensive as shit and can't operate along with cars. For fucks sake.
     
    Sultan Pepper likes this.
  19. stupersteve03 SJ Cambridge

    I am by no means a fan. But they have been much quicker to add stimulus in to the economy than I expected and primarily in less "trickle down" methods than I feared. Again a low bar for sure. But this seems s little less Scotty from marketing than usual.
     
  20. stupersteve03 SJ Cambridge

    All of this seems fairly accurate and fair. But his whole persona was wrong for the time. It was a national issue so whilst policy wise there was very little he could do he does need to show leadership. Forcing angry people to shake your hand and leaving the country plus the numerous other ways in which he failed the visual of it all really left a bad taste.
     

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