JUST when we assumed coronavirus madness would be defined by supermarket customers fighting over toilet rolls, along comes the notion that Newcastle Rugby League players might not play unless they are paid.
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This mind-boggling prospect first surfaced on Wednesday, when the NSW Rugby League announced its plan for senior competitions - including the Newcastle RL - to hopefully kick off on July 18.
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After a seemingly endless sporting hiatus, you would assume that was great news for all involved. But there was one prominent fly in the ointment - the likelihood of spectators being either banned from attending games or limited in numbers, because of coronavirus social-distancing regulations.
No spectators means no gate-taking for the home team, and no cans of beer or steak sandwiches being served in the canteen.
As Newcastle RL chief executive Matt Harris told the Herald's Josh Callinan: "The critical one for us will be crowds. If there are no crowds then clubs aren't generating any money and that would impact player payments."
You might assume this was not the end of the world.
Newcastle RL players don't earn enough money to make a living from the game.
Some of them are lucky enough to secure employment via their clubs, be that in the mining industry or a job in the leagues-club cellar.
But given a club's playing contracts and match payments have to squeeze within a salary cap of roughly $140,000 - which would struggle to pay an average NRL professional - it's fair to say nobody is ever going to get rich playing in the Newcastle RL.
Some of these guys are former NRL players at the end of their careers, and some may have played lower grades or at junior-representative level. Others were simply never good enough to make the top grade.
In which case it would seem reasonable to deduce that they are playing simply for the love of the game - but apparently not.
Clubs still find a way to pay them and, sometimes, as was the case with now-defunct Waratah-Mayfield, on-field success can ultimately prove a price too high.
And as my Herald colleague Barry Toohey reveals in his Toohey's News column today, at least two prominent coaches - Matt Lantry (Maitland) and Todd Edwards (Cessnock) - have their doubts about whether players will be willing to run around without remuneration.
"If you went to all the players that are contracted for decent money and told them we needed them to play for free, I reckon you'd be lucky to find 20 per cent who were willing to do that," Lantry said.
Edwards added: "While there'll be some players who don't play for the money, there'll be plenty of others who do ... I'm pretty sure we'd lose a lot of players if it was zero money on offer."
I have no cause to doubt either Lantry or Edwards, who know the Real NRL landscape better than anyone.
For any of their troops who baulk at the concept of playing without pay, I'd ask a simple question: who are you kidding?
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression almost 100 years ago, and all levels of sport around the globe have suffered unprecedented consequences.
Even the major codes might never fully recover, and individual careers have in many cases been transformed irrevocably.
And at a time when solidarity would appear crucial, apparently we'll have a bunch of blokes who aren't good enough to be playing professionally yet aren't willing to play if their usual pocket money isn't forthcoming.
It's not only the Necwastle RL players, either. By all accounts the NPL soccer players are just as bad. Indeed Northern NSW NPL standing-committee chairperson Andrew Bozinovski told the Herald's Craig Kerry last month a long-term absence of spectators would financially leave many clubs "on the brink", presumably because players, like their rugby league counterparts, would still be expecting their pound of flesh.
Newcastle RL players can certainly argue that they play a dangerous game, and if they happen to suffer injury, that might impact on their day jobs. Hence they deserve some financial compensation for their efforts.
But players in the Newcastle and Hunter Rugby Union and Black Diamond AFL surely face similar risks, and I'd imagine few, if any, of them earn a cent.
Not forgetting Newcastle's first-grade cricketers, who pay match fees to cover the costs of balls, curators and umpires. Nor of course the myriad athletes involved in obscure, unheralded sports, whose only reward might be to one day live their dream of competing at the Olympics.
In normal circumstances, nobody should begrudge the capacity of Newcastle RL players to earn a quid. Good luck to them. But this is a time to be giving something back to the game, rather than sticking your hand out.
Anyone so mercenary that they won't play without pay strikes as as the sort of bloke who would be the first to let his side down, and the last to show any loyalty to his jersey and teammates.
Clubs would do well to remember that when normal service resumes.
