General president Daly Cherry-Evans believes the Rugby League Players Association has put the ball in the NRL’s court by imposing a media ban until the end of protracted collective bargaining agreement negotiations.
With the new CBA now eight months overdue, the RLPA last Wednesday announced its most drastic action yet.
Players have agreed not to talk to media on days when games are played until a draft CBA has been agreed upon, until both parties have met with an industrial relations mediator and until player entitlements return to pre-COVID levels.
It comes as the league and its players dispute several of the 100 items in the CBA, including the NRL’s ability to lengthen the season without consent, access to and ownership of player data and allocation of RLPA funds.
With no matches played until Wednesday, Monday marked the first time players were available to media since the RLPA announced its strike.
“The message is loud and clear. We just want progress to take place,” Cherry-Evans said.
“What we’ve done is we’ve put a stake in the ground. We really want this thing done.
“We don’t want to spend our time worrying about a negotiation but this negotiation is important to the playing group so we want it done.”
Cherry-Evans would not put a time frame on the resumption of normal media commitments.
“We want it done sooner rather than later,” he said.
“The next move is up to the NRL to get us in a room and get it done.”
Throughout the negotiation process, the NRL has maintained it has listened to players and acted in good faith but that it must ensure the long-term financial security of the code.
The RLPA believes it had little choice but to take strong action, given the current CBA can only roll over until the end of October before no agreement will be in place at all.
Sydney Roosters five-eighth Luke Keary said he could empathise with both sides of the debate.
“It’s the RLPA’s job to fight for our rights, protect us into the future, protect the income, protect the players and how many games they’re playing, things like that,” he said.
“But you can take yourself out of it and go, ‘Well what’s the NRL’s job?’.
“Their job is to run the game, keep it viable, keep it sustainable into the future.
“But it’s not going to stop the RLPA from trying to protect the players’ rights.
“There’s always going to be a bit of pushback and there should be. Because if there’s no pushback, someone’s getting pushed over.”
Keary rejected the suggestion from Canberra coach Ricky Stuart last week that “95 per cent of players” would not know why the media blackout had been enacted.
“Communication has been really effective from the RLPA and the delegates,” Keary said.
“The RLPA are constantly out, coming here (at Roosters headquarters) to feed that information back, they were here a couple of weeks ago.
“It’s kind of an invalid argument.”
