Today we take a look at Tom Trbojevic's offer to play for less money, the very sloppy Cowboys victory over a depleted Storm side and Wayne Bennett's somewhat disappointing tenure at the Dolphins.
Read on as we tackle some of the big talking points in this week's Real or Not.
The NRL has to dictate what a player is worth
REAL: There was news out of Manly during the week that Tom Trbojevic had requested a pay cut in order to help the club out with salary cap pressures. Trbojevic's argument was that he has missed a lot of football over the past few years through injury and felt that he owed the club for supporting him through those difficult times.
The NRL quickly stomped on the prospect, reminding the Sea Eagles that they alone determine a player's minimum market value for salary cap purposes. The system prevents clubs from signing top line players such as Trbojevic on artificially reduced contracts, then either remunerating them through back-ended deals or more nefarious means.
Manly coach Anthony Seibold was more upset with media suggestions that the pay cut plan had been the club's idea.
"It's very disappointing to hear some people question Turbo's integrity or the integrity of the club," Seibold said.
"Turbo came to me and said that he wanted to take a pay cut because he felt like he'd missed a whole heap of football.
"It was a really difficult conversation for him to come to the coach and say that. That's all been buried, the NRL have said that he can't do that."
Trbojevic is reportedly on $1.2 million a season, a figure that befits his position as one of the best players in the game. When you combine that with the $1 million a year Daly Cherry Evans is collecting, it is easy to see how a Trbojevic pay cut could help the Sea Eagles spread the love to players they want to either retain or obtain. It was a noble offer from Trbojevic, but one that the club must have known the NRL would never permit.
Individual circumstances cannot be allowed to interfere with what is a fundamental pillar of the salary cap system. It would turn the whole thing into a complete joke if a player like Trbojevic could take his place in a club's salary cap on a reduced contract.
The Sea Eagles might just have to wait for Cherry-Evans to retire and for Trbojevic to negotiate his next contract. Perhaps the NRL will take into consideration his advancing years and deteriorating body when assessing his minimum salary cap value at that time.
Cowboys prove themselves to be premiership threats with victory over Storm
NOT REAL: The Storm travelled to Townsville with eleven changes to their squad, but still ran out against the Cowboys with Cameron Munster and Ryan Papenhuyzen taking their places after insisting that they needed the match fitness ahead of the finals. Just minutes into the game Craig Bellamy would have been wondering about the wisdom of that move, as Papenhuyzen limped from the field clutching at a lower leg injury, which was later revealed to be just heavy bruising.
Still, it was the Cowboys who started looking like a hastily thrown together bunch of misfits. Their handling was awful and Munster was able to take advantage early, sending his prop Lazarus Vaalepu over with a sleight of hand pass that left Jeremiah Nanai standing like his feet were set in concrete.
The Cowboys settled down enough to score the next two tries in opposite corners of the field, before Munster again sent another forward, Alec MacDonald, over for the Storm's second try. Six minutes before the break Tyran Wishart picked the ball up from the base of a scrum ten metres out and threw a massive dummy which again left Nanai looking like he'd never played the game before.
The Storm were proving that with Munster ably supported by Wishart, combined with all the other plug-and-play role players, they still had enough firepower to match the Cowboys. The hosts on the other hand were playing the kind of inconsistent football that had many doubting their Top 8 credentials for most of the year. The Cowboys managed to regain the lead 18-16 just before the break, but trudged off to have their ears chewed on by coach Todd Payten.
The Cowboys were first to score in the second half, but were still less than convincing. Seventeen minutes after the break, Wishart was in again and the scores were level at 24-24. No one had expected the depleted Storm to trouble the Cowboys, but they matched them well into the game.
It wasn't until the final 15 minutes that the speed of the game caught up with Storm players more familiar with playing in the lower grades. The Cowboys ran in two tries to take an unassailable lead, but were still sloppy enough to allow the Storm one last try to Ativalu Lisati. Overall it was a very disappointing performance from a team that is hoping to compete in the finals. Next week they face a full-strength Bulldogs in a game that will test them even further.
A loss to the Broncos would leave Bennett's Dolphins tenure tarnished
REAL: Super coach Wayne Bennett has received a lot of plaudits for his role in setting up the Dolphins for their entry into the NRL. He has been credited with the recruitment decisions and with molding those choices into a competitive force in their first two years in the national competition. But, this year has been very disappointing, when you consider how well they started and how horribly they have crashed.
In their inaugural season they faded towards the back-end, suffering from a lack of depth, to finish 13th. They welcomed a few key recruits for the 2024 season, started with a thumping loss to the Cowboys, before winning seven of their next nine games to be sitting nicely within the Top 8. From that point onwards they would win just three of their next 12 games to tumble down the ladder.
Inconsistency is not usually in the Bennett coaching manual. It has been a completely frustrating season, and yet they face the Broncos this weekend, still capable of sneaking into the finals. A loss to the Broncos and their season would be over with Bennett set to return to South Sydney next year, leaving Kristian Woolf in charge. No one expected the Dolphins to challenge for a premiership in their first two seasons, but after two strong starts and an improving roster, it will be bitterly disappointing if they prove incapable of hanging on for a taste of finals football.