It is a tangled web, these troubled players weave.

We awake this morning to reports Kieran Foran, hit by family dramas, gambling problems, depression and a season-ending injury, has quit Parramatta and – for the time being – rugby league.

Most NRL fans feel for Foran. In my dealings with him, I’ve always found him a thoroughly nice fellow. But when he stopped showing up to rehab, he was disciplined by a club with even more problems than him.

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Now we read that, co-incidentally, the Eels need a chunk of Foran’s estimated $5 million contract to recapture Jarryd Hayne when he his finished on his multi-sports odyssey.

We are asked to believe this is just a happy co-incidence.

There have been similar instances in the past. At Parramatta, Anthony Watmough’s retirement was fortuitously timed.

Aaron Gray and Dylan Walker had a frightening run-in with prescription drugs last off-season.

The latter’s departure couldn’t have hurt South Sydney as they juggled their books to recapture another code-crosser, Sam Burgess.

There’s a contradiction here, one that deserves closer examination.



On one hand, the NRL Integrity Unit sits back with arms folded, making sure clubs “do the right thing” to protect the competition and the sport’s image by properly disciplining errant stars.

The league talks earnestly about player welfare.

But on the other, it allows the appearance of expediency, of one-rule-for-good-players, to flourish. Player welfare and player discipline are allowed to be stirred into a big pot with recruitment, retention and salary cap management.

It makes you wonder how much anyone really cares about the first two, and whether they are mere smokescreens to enable the other three.

Surely there should be a process in place that gives the public more faith that clubs can, will and do act altruistically in the interests of players and the game’s image.

Perhaps in a case such as Foran’s, there is an investigation to ensure the decision to quit was entirely the player’s before the cap funds are released to be spent on Hayne.

And when players are disciplined to protect the game’s brand, a formula provides salary cap relief.

Would clubs then find off-field offences to use against under-performing players in the interests of salary cap relief?



Nothing would surprise.

*******

This will be my last column for the Roar for the time being – at least until the end of the NRL season and probably until after the Four Nations.

I’ve been given an opportunity elsewhere to develop new skills and as a condition of that, I can’t do this anymore.

So thanks to everyone who has read or commented on the columns during the current tenure and that includes those who’ve disagreed vehemently.

Thanks also to that special breed of Roar reader who indulges in debate that has nothing to do with what is written at the top of the page!