WE are still six weeks out from the start of the new NRL season and already the spin is out of control.

It seems Ben Barba has conveniently forgot about the private distractions in his world the last few years and now blames the Broncos for the footy he played last year, saying they made him put on too much weight and didn’t show enough love.

At Redfern, Greg Inglis is taking over from John Sutton as captain and Michael Maguire is adamant this was a dual decision between him and Sutton, saying the bloke who led the Rabbitohs to their first premiership in 43 years just wants to concentrate on his football in

2015.

Strangely, this captaincy change arrived the same week it emerged Inglis had been offered two multi-million dollar deals to quit the NRL and head to northern hemisphere rugby at the end of this year.

Surely the captaincy wasn’t the carrot specifically designed to keep Inglis at Redfern. Or was it?

Then down to League Central, where Dave Smith delivered another surprise, announcing Shane Richardson as the latest senior executive to join his mothership on a big fat salary.

And after Smith had kept his head of football Todd Greenberg in the dark for weeks about Richardson’s new gig, Greenberg came out and, straight-faced, said: “I think it is a great appointment ... I feel really positive about it”.

Probably like Sutton would feel positive right now. Sometimes it pays to embrace change, especially when you have no say over it.

But one change worth arguing is this new rule “interpretation” relating to the release of a tackled player the NRL tried to sneak through two days before Christmas.

Just imagine Wayne Bennett up in Brisbane this week, giggling as he watched the chaos unfold.

Coaches are now threatening to boycott next months conference with the NRL.

And don’t worry, there will be blow-ups galore in the opening weeks of the competition — and when that happens the NRL will have only themselves to blame because this is how it unfolded.

On December 1 every coach made themselves available for the coaches conference. Significantly it was the first time all 16 head coaches had come together for this annual get-together because Greenberg stressed how vital it was.

At the conclusion of that meeting the coaches were told there would be no rule changes this year, so they went home to continue their preparations for the upcoming season.

Meanwhile, the NRL’s two-day competition committee summit followed and that is when it was decided the game needed to stamp out wrestling.

It’s important to remember that prior to this Matthew Johns had come out publicly and encouraged the NRL to consider a reduction to the interchange to help eliminate wrestle — and that idea received strong support from some coaches.

Johns actually first mooted this idea early in the year but Greenberg said it would not be fair to make the change immediately, because clubs needed time to adjust their rosters.

So instead the competition committee came up with this new rule at a two-day conference in December.

Basically, when the referee now calls “held” every defender has to release the attacking player simultaneously, or they will be penalised.

Previously, if three players were involved in a tackle the person down low could hold on while the two up top peeled off, or vice-versa.

But most coaches are asking how are refs going to enforce this new rule consistently, when it is all about interpretation, and don’t we have enough grey in the game already?

The other fear is this will lead to less attacking football because it will encourage more dummy half scoots on the back of big blokes diving to their knees for quick play-the-balls.

As coaches ask: is that the football you want to watch?

Meanwhile, back to Bennett and his perceived influence.

Greenberg rightly points out that for two long coaches have had too much say over rule changes and that is a big part of the game’s problems.

If that is the case, why should Bennett and Trent Robinson be allowed to sit on this competition committee? And why did they know about the coming change on December 3, yet all other coaches found out on December 23, when their players had finished training for the year?

Most clubs didn’t return until the second week of January, which gave the Roosters and Broncos a five week head-start.

Greenberg maintains this is not a rule change, but that is misleading because anything that changes the fabric of the game is significant.

Coaches say it would have made sense telling them about the changes when they met in Sydney, or at least after the two-day competition committee summit.

Greenberg explains the change could not be rubber stamped before it went to the Independent Commission. Surely that should not take three weeks.

While Bennett says this rule will be good for the game, and he might be right, the argument that both he and Robinson were given a competitive edge is legitimate.

How significant we will see in coming months.

But again it goes to the heart of a lot of problems we have emerging in the game.

Too many of these high paid executives continue to talk up where they will take the game in five and 10 years from now. But where will it really be if we lose sight of now?