Player agent Isaac Moses' potential role in shaping the Warriors can't be ignored. Photo / Getty Images.
Isaac Moses is one of a handful of player agents who rule the NRL. With the Warriors coach, assistant, four squad members and new signing Kodi Nikorima on his books, Chris Rattue looks at how much power he really holds.
Where have you been, if you haven't heard of Kodi Nikorima?
The 13-test Kiwi playmaker has been in the headlines all week, as speculation mounted over his move from the Brisbane Broncos to New Zealand Warriors.
It has put plenty of people in the spotlight, including Broncos and Warriors players, coaches Steve Kearney and Anthony Seibold, and famous onlookers.
But the man actually making these headlines, according to some NRL observers, was buried in the fine print.
Player agent Isaac Moses' potential role in shaping the Warriors can't be ignored.
Moses is one of a handful of agents who now rule the transfer market roost in the NRL.
He keeps a relatively low profile — his agency website doesn't even carry a photo. But he carries a lot of influence.
Moses' many clients include Nikorima, Kearney, Warriors assistant Todd Payten, Seibold, four Warriors players and about a dozen Broncos first graders including Shaun O'Sullivan, whose father Peter is the Warriors recruitment boss.
Agents acting for both coaches and players is a potential conflict of interest which has concerned the NRL, although little has ever been proven.
But what can't be denied is that potential for manipulation exists, and that fans need to be aware of the forces which can shape their clubs.
Last month, the Queensland great Gorden Tallis attacked the Broncos, and claimed Moses "runs that club".
"No one runs that club except for him because he's got 18 players and the coach," Tallis said, although he may have exaggerated the number of Broncos in the Moses stable.
Moses does not act for a huge number of Warriors. Three he does represent — Adam Blair, Blake Green and Gerard Beale — have been big signings since Kearney was appointed head coach before the 2017 season, although there have been plenty of other recruits who are represented by other agents.
Indeed, the young player in greatest danger of being shunted aside for Nikorima, Chanel Harris-Tavita, 20, is among nine Warriors represented by SFX whose managing director is George Mimis, another one of the game's major agents.
Mimis and Moses were among three agents suspended by the Rugby League Accredited Player Agent Committee, headed by a QC, for six months in 2012 in relation to the Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal two years earlier.
There was another Moses-related controversy two years ago when there were claims, repeated recently by Tallis, that he held too much influence at the Wests Tigers.
At the time, Sydney's Sunday Telegraph reckoned: "Most fans wouldn't spot him on the street, but player agent Isaac Moses is more powerful than most of the suits with NRL on the business cards."
He was described as the "backroom man" behind the Tigers "catastrophic player spill".
But do agents get an unfair rap? Are they simply a soft target?
Players in Australian league clubs (and the Warriors) are not highly paid by world professional sports standards, even though their lot has improved vastly.
The Super League war of the 1990s erupted primarily because the old Australian Rugby League had failed to maximise the amount of money it could get from broadcasting deals.
While the game was booming thanks to television coverage and the wondrous three-match State of Origin series between Queensland and New South Wales, that public clamour wasn't being reflected in the players' bank accounts.
Rugby league, centred on Australia's east coast, was a sort of wild west full of characters and legends. A few of them actually ran the game.
Maybe the most famous of administrators was Peter "Bullfrog" Moore, head of the Canterbury Bulldogs.
In an oft-recounted tale, Moore once arranged a sit down and meal for other club bosses while he jetted to England to sign a touring Australian schoolboy, Andrew Farrar, behind their backs. What isn't revealed in the fond re-telling of this yarn is what sort of deal Farrar got.
Folklore or not, it is a story which represents that age.
But the wily Moore would never get near a player without a clever agent being involved these days.
And in the case of agents such as Moses, they are in a position to act like a quasi-union, thanks to the number of people they represent.
There are 110 accredited agents, including Kiwi identities such as former coach Frank Endacott and test prop Peter Brown.
Another is Auckland league identity Stan Martin whose clients include star wings David Fusitu'a and Ken Maumalo. Martin has told the Herald he has a lot of autonomy with his longstanding New Zealand players, while still operating under the SFX wing.
A handful of names dominate an arena in which it is estimated agents earn, combined, around $10m a season. Many agents have never been near a whiff of controversy.
Some have, of course.
Two years ago, the legendary Sydney Morning Herald league columnist Roy Masters reported on an NRL chief executive who told him about a tactic used by a "prominent agent".
The agent represented two players nearing the end of their contracts. He demanded top dollar for the international, while simply saying "pay what you can" to the journeyman. He didn't charge the better player any commission, in return for that player bringing others to the agent's stable.
"There is increasing concern at player managers trafficking their players to a club where the coach is also a client," wrote Masters, a former first grade coach.
But you can also argue that agents are simply doing their job, which is to represent their clients in the best possible way. It is still up to the clubs to make clever decisions, as the Melbourne Storm — who have many Moses clients including Cameron Smith in their squad — certainly do.
Natural conflicts of interest will often arise in the constant comings and goings of sport.
And if league has issues, it is not alone. It is an area fraught with problems, massive amounts of money and intrigue around world sport.
In one of the best known examples, the old Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson refused to talk to the BBC for seven years, claiming they unfairly inferred that his agent son Jason exploited his father's influence in transfer dealings.
One thing is certain: the influence of agents will not go away. And in the take-no-prisoners world of Australian league, they can pop up anywhere.
As the Tongan test league revolution took hold over the past couple of years, New Zealand officials were apparently surprised to find that they were dealing with an Australian agent named Chris Orr, owner of Pacific Sports Management.
Orr — they discovered — had a commercial agreement to represent Tonga. Orr's star client is Jason Taumalolo, the brilliant Cowboys forward who kicked the Tongan league surge off when he quit the Kiwis to join their 2017 World Cup campaign.
Most people would see this situation as clear cut — national teams should not be represented by individual agents, particularly ones who have player clients.
An upheaval in Tongan league has seen the old board replaced under a new chairman George Koloamatangi. Tonga league's secretary, a lawyer, is investigating the Orr deal.
"I have never spoken to Chris Orr but we are dealing with that at the moment," Koloamatangi told the Herald.
"We are sorting through a whole lot of things ... there was an agreement with him and the old board which we are trying to rectify."
What should be questioned over the Warriors' signings of Blair and perhaps Nikorima is the size of the contracts. The fading Blair was too old to be given a three-year deal reportedly worth close to $2m.
Nikorima has supposedly been offered well over double the $250,000 a year he has earned in Brisbane, an amount no other club would likely pay for him.
Warriors fans could rightly ask whether, without Moses' influence, the club would be looking harder for a better player in the halves, whether the money on Nikorima is well spent. If the club overspends in one area, they will suffer in others under the salary cap system.
But it is pandering to a stereotype to see agents in a poor light all the time.
They may overstep the line at times, but even then a club such as the Warriors — it could be argued — may actually benefit through an agent's influence. To a degree, it's all fair in love and war in professional sport.
And not everything goes along party lines. Moses may have been orchestrating a profitable Nikorima move to Auckland, but Queensland coach Kevin Walters — one of his clients — was one of the loudest voices to oppose it.
The players also deserve hard-headed representation.
The first fulltime Aussie league player agent was Wayne Beavis whose initial client was David Gillespie, a big hitter known as "Cement" who helped pound the Kiwis in the 1988 World Cup final at a sold out Eden Park.
Beavis once told news.com.au: "Our players are underpaid to buggery and they have been for a long time.
"Go ask [Kangaroos forward] Nathan Hindmarsh about the punishment his body has endured. They get their bodies smashed every week and they deserve every penny they earn over a short career span."
Every penny, minus seven per cent.
*Despite repeated attempts, Isaac Moses was unreachable for comment.
Andrew Webster is confident the Warriors will bounce back next week against the Broncos.