Graham Lowe: Jones affair shows suits call the shots

Some of us considered to be league dinosaurs can still remember the days when clubs were run by ex-footballers with more scars from their on-field exploits than business cards.

The fact is, the business plans and financial models that most National Rugby League CEOs like to talk about are vital for their clubs' survival. But at what cost to the areas it matters most: the fans, and what happens on the football field?

The CEOs, or club secretaries, as they were known in Australia, may have lacked formal corporate training but they knew how to get the deals done when signing players, and how to keep them happy.

In that era of games past, clubs and players relied heavily on loyalty, pride and tradition. So it's disappointing that these values seem to be disappearing from the sport and the influence of the suits is becoming stronger than ever.

To lose a player of the calibre of Stacey Jones calibre while he is still under contract would have been unthinkable in days gone by. Even more disturbing to the old-stagers is that the whole episode took on the appearance of a soap opera, albeit a badly managed one.

Stacey's exit will undoubtedly ease the financial burden on the struggling Warriors club. But the overall impression I got was that it wasn't the way to handle the departure of the club's greatest player. For whatever reason, he was put in a position where he appeared - at least for a few days - to be at loggerheads with the media.

Jones is obviously a victim of the club's salary cap pressures, and there's no doubt plans have been in train for some time to replace him behind the Warriors' scrum. The problem I see is that, even in the twilight of his NRL career, there is nobody on the horizon who can adequately step into his shoes.

One of the yardsticks of an astute coach (or in the case of the Warriors, a CEO) is to know exactly when it's time to cut your top players, in the way that Wayne Bennett did to Wally Lewis.

The problem here, though, is that Mick Watson seems to have created a wonderful pool of talent of top-performing players for UK and European clubs, who must be queuing at the Warriors' front door waiting for the next big name on offer. 

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One of the burning questions facing the NRL at present is whether the salary cap is responsible for the number of upset results so far this season.

NRL boss David Gallop and his board certainly like to believe this. And some of the non-performing clubs have been quick to blame their poor form on the evenness of the competition the cap was promoted to develop.

I don't go along with the theory at all.

I believe the cap has a degree of merit, as long as it doesn't restrict the organic growth of the clubs.

The upset results, in my opinion, are largely due to the type of game that a number of clubs are playing. They all look very similar to me, except for one or two at the top.

The Cowboys are playing an attractive, exciting style of attacking football and using all their personnel to their best advantage. Sure they can come unstuck at times, but they give their strike players plenty of attacking opportunities.

They are the best-balanced side in the competition at the moment. They have their forwards working as forwards and keeping out of the way of the fleet-footed backs.

They also don't restrict their players to one side of the field, which is a pattern that has crept into the game in recent years.

Using a game plan that restricts players to operate only on one side of the ruck or the right side may have its advantages as far as the organisation goes. But it is cultivating a breed of players who are very limited in general skills and positional play.

North Queensland and the Broncos are alone in having won six matches out of eight because of their pattern of play. They manage to switch from aggressive tight play when it is required in both attack and defence to an open, expansive and attacking game when the opportunities present themselves.

Too many of the other clubs are limiting their chances because of their rigidly structured positional lineups that very often leave their best attacking players on the wrong side.

When a team is struggling it is natural for the coaches to "close up shop" and remain very conservative with their game plans, and therefore hopefully error free.

But this can also produce a negative mental state in the players, who see half a chance but are unsure and reluctant to have a go at it in case it brings about a mistake.

Once this mentality creeps in it is very hard to remove. Funnily enough, it can often drag the opposition team into the same state of negative game, which is what we saw from both Penrith and the Warriors last Sunday.

Both fielded some great attacking players but neither side took advantage because they sucked each other into an arm wrestle.

Although the season is only eight rounds old it is already at a critical stage for a few of the clubs. If several don't make their move now they will be out of the race. For anyone who doesn't have their careers on the line it is exciting because anything could and may happen.