Sinitster wrote:WOW , indeed ...
what sort of game will they be playing for the rest of the season .....
won't be real fair on their opponents will it ? ?
Maybe they should just be banned from playing at all the rest of this season , a bye would be better for the opposition than an injury in a game against them !
A few things to consider:
Removing the team from the rest of the season would be impossible, there are coporate sponsorships tv rights, memeberships and season tickets. Other clubs would also face financial loss over this losing home game attendances and game revenues.
I believe the NRL sjould have stripped 16 or 20 premiership points from the storm which would mean they would defiantely have no chance for finals but realistically could still play for the chance of avoiding the wooden spoon. Would at least give the club something to play for.
An interesting point about how they play their football for the remainder of the season is this. The NRL uses a grading and point system for the tribunal. Depending on the charge and the players previous tribunal points decides the suspension issued. Points carry over from season to season. In theory they will be able to work out what kind of a charge will acummulate enough points to get a 3 or 4 week suspension and reset the carry over points to 0. Bassically giving all their players a clean sheet at the start of the next season. Also potentially could hurt certain teams at end of season by targeting opposition playmakers causing injuries.
Players from the storm should still play at a high level as at least 7 will be chasing representative jerseys in the coming months.
This has got the potential to completely ruin the club because there will be a major revenue loss for the remainder of the season as crowd sizes will be down, merchandise sales will also suffer. As a minority sport in melbourne may be hard for them to recover.
