Graham Lowe: The salary cap scandal

The extraordinary events played out at Ericsson Stadium this week might well have had uninformed observers thinking they were, if not in another galaxy, then surely somewhere in cloud cuckoo land.

This was tragedy and comedy of stellar proportions, even for a league club. Albeit a club whose seemingly mild-mannered owner reportedly smartened up the legendary modern-day celluloid gladiator Russell Crowe with a bit of old-fashioned biffo in a trendy London toilet a season or so ago.

League has always provided larger-than-life characters and drama both on and off the field since the earliest days when a group of northern Englishmen provoked outrage and exile by asking to be compensated for the time they spent hoofing a rugby ball around a muddy field.

Admittedly, it's a long way from the George Hotel, a pub in Huddersfield where it all started, to comparisons with an orbital space station. But events continue to prove an uncanny connection. As the drama unfolds, like Captain Kirk and his Starship Enterprise crew, Warriors coach Ivan Cleary and his intrepid off-siders are about to go where no man (or at least, no footy coach) has ever gone before.

Forget the whys and wherefores for a moment. (Although I'm still puzzled - did anyone ever actually own up to anything?)

We have a situation here. And history is no help.

In just nine days, the Warriors will kick off season 2006, not alongside the other 12 teams, but four points adrift. Oh, and $450,000 down on the distributions that will be made by the NRL to their law-abiding adversaries.

Now, I've had some challenges as a coach. But none would quite match the challenge of sitting with a team moments before they run out on the footy field, in the full and certain knowledge that NOTHING they do in the following 80 minutes will make a blind bit of difference to their position in the competition. NOTHING.

I confess I have had the odd doubt in the odd changing room when I've glanced into the odd (very odd) pair of eyes, as to whether anyone was home on the day. No lights were apparently on inside the headgear.

I well recall recruiting a giant forward from New Zealand during my stint as coach of the North Queensland Cowboys. I noticed my trainer had been scrutinising this man-mountain carefully during training and in the dressing room.

Finally the trainer came to me and said, "Lowie, I've been watching [man-mountain] closely for a while now."

"Good," I replied.

"Well," said the trainer, "I think he's as strong as a gorilla."

"Good," I replied again.

"And he's as tough as a gorilla," said the trainer.

"Yeah, great," I said, "so what's the problem?"

"Well, it's just that he's nowhere near as smart as a gorilla," he replied.

It's hard enough at the best of times to motivate a dressing room full of guys who have chosen professional league over a doctorate at Oxford for a very good reason (not enough pubs in Oxford they reckoned).

During one crucial match for my Wigan side against Hull, I knew I had to push the team outside their normal thinking patterns, so I asked each player in turn to describe to his teammates what he would do to the man he was marking when he caught up with him during the game.

The various explanations were quite colourful and imaginative in their degrees of brutality. It came to the turn of Andy Goodway, one of our second rowers who was particularly animated in his description of how he would dismember his opposite number (Pommie hard man Lee Crooks) with excruciating cruelty.

Next up was brilliant English centre Joe Lydon, always the coolest man in the dressing room.

"What about you Joe?" I asked. "What will you do with your opposite?"

"Oh, I'm just going to catch up with him and throw him to Andy to take care of," replied Joe.

Of course you get all types, and being able to read players, and hopefully hit their hot buttons, is the measure of a good coach.

I've had a few players who in the dressing room talk like Tarzan but once they take the field they play like Jane.

Others had no such problems.

With Matthew Ridge, for example, it was a matter of harnessing a healthy reservoir of anger, talent and attitude then turning him loose.

I used to pride myself on the way I could send Ridge out onto the field like a coiled spring.

Throughout my years of coaching, I've found it is always better if you can convince players that they are playing FOR something very important.

To some players, that's simply pride, and they'll run and tackle all day because they have heaps of that quality. But there's more of the other type, who do require help with focus and motivation.

In that regard, I don't envy Ivan Cleary his job in the next few weeks, until the four points have been legitimately lost and have effectively evaporated into the ether. Because it's going to be a huge task removing the "Yeah, but no matter how hard and well I play today, it could still count for nothing," from the backs of the minds of his players.

But they must be convinced that winning is still the most important weekly task and that it has to be in the forefront of their minds.

There is plenty of talent and experience in this team, and despite the loss of the four points I believe they can finish in the middle of the order. If they do, that will put them in the semifinals.

Then anything can happen.

I'm also really impressed with the honest and frank appraisals Ivan Cleary has given so far when commenting on his team's performances in the trials.

I must say though, there hasn't been a great deal to impress me about the performances of the Cullen Sports board during this sorry saga.

Shifting blame seemed to be an art form, and I'm still at a loss to know why directors apparently not knowing about what was going on in the payment of players contracted to the club is somehow excusable.

Seems to me that's not the case in the real business world.

Now we have the almost unbelievable statement from Eric Watson that the four-point deduction was not in the spirit of transtasman sport.

So Eric, what spirit was the salary cap rorting in?

A final thought. We all know winners are grinners, and most people still have fond memories of Watson when his side marched into the 2002 grand final against the Sydney City Roosters.

Remember Watson then? He was very quickly alongside the team in Sydney, revelling in the moment and rightly so.

He even generously put his hand in his pocket to pay for thousands of tickets so Kiwis living in Sydney could turn up to support the Warriors.

What now, in the bad times?

For mine, Watson should already have been here to front up and support his club. For the long-suffering fans, at least for game one the owner should be throwing the gates open in a gesture of redemption. And he should be making a gesture to those incredible loyalists who have actually bought season tickets.

Ten minutes before kick off Watson should be standing in the middle of the park, apologising to the league public for the club's behaviour.

It will be difficult, but I am sure if he fronts up, he'll find people in time willing to (I'm sorry about this, I just can't get it out of my mind) 4give and 4get.

The fans deserve nothing less.