The 7th Tackle - with Josh Massoud and Jim Wilson

7News Sports Presenter Jim Wilson and Chief Rugby League Reporter Josh Massoud run through all the burning topics from the rugby league world that you may not know about.

From the extreme measures Manly are taking to protect Daly Cherry-Evans to the radical changes facing the NSW Cup, it's all in this week's edition of The 7th Tackle.

Tackle 1 – DCE in line for the royal treatment

Manly has bent over backwards – and then some – to keep star halfback Daly Cherry-Evans. Now we here the club is going the extra mile to ensure he’s adequately protected off the field.

The eight-year duration of Cherry-Evans’ deal has presented some unique challenges for the Sea Eagles. The first is that extends well beyond the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which expires at the end of 2017. The CBA covers all players in the event of season-ending injury, but, as last year’s catastrophe involving Alex McKinnon proved, that coverage is limited.

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Cherry-Evans stayed loyal for the rare chance of lifetime security – and now the Sea Eagles are seeking to add to that by purchasing their own insurance policy to provide extra coverage for the NRL’s first-ever $10 million man.

Tackle 2 – NSW Cup gets an unwanted make-over

There’s no hiding from the facts: this has been a bleak week for rugby league. The shoulder charge farce and Rupert Murdoch’s declaration of war has put the code into the foetal position. Now for another unfathomable call.

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A few weeks ago we revealed the Under 20s Holden Cup would be scrapped from 2017, with open age competitions – the NSW Cup and QLD Cup – restored to their rightful place atop of the talent feeder chain. Presumably, this would mean showcasing ‘reserve grade’ matches as curtain raisers at NRL venues.

The loss in prestige and player drain from these competitions, the NSW Cup in particular, is directly attributable to the fact they’ve been shunted to suburban backwater. Now we’ve learned nothing will change under the NRL’s new strategic plan. In fact, it will get worse.

The vision for the NSW Cup is an expanded competition involving teams from Fiji, New Zealand and regional areas. These outposts will be accommodated at the expense of a like-for-like number of Sydney teams, meaning city-based NRL sides will have to merge their excess players into unaffiliated feeder clubs each weekend.

For example, the Rabbitohs and Tigers will be allocated a NSW Cup side with no connection to either club, such as Newtown or North Sydney. Each weekend that feeder side would play with a combination of cast-offs from both teams. Worst of all, these matches will take place in the same second and third rate venues. That means there will be no curtain raisers before NRL games, with the Holden Cup retreating to an 18-week format.

At a time when the NRL is desperately searching for ways to provide more value for money to the diminishing number of fans who can still be bothered to attend games, it’s madness.

Tackle 3 – Choc full of spite

He won’t be strapping on the boots, but Anthony Watmough will nevertheless attract plenty of attention when he returns to Brookvale Oval this weekend. Watmough has just emerged from back-to-back surgeries on his shoulder and knee; both joints requiring a serious clean-out after 303 bruising appearances.

Less than a week out of hospital, Watmough made it to Moore Park last Saturday night to watch Parramatta’s gutsy performance against the Roosters from the away team bunker. Now he’s expected to front up on even more hostile turf on Sunday afternoon. And his return could not be better timed.

Manly are hosting 150 club greats – known as the ‘Golden Eagles’ – at the match. A double-premiership winner, Watmough is regarded as a member – but it’s unlikely he’ll be taking part in a special march from the Leagues Club before kick-off. Already a Sea Eagles life member, Watmough split on bitter terms and made little secret of his disregard for coach Geoff Toovey upon arriving at Parramatta.

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After being sacked three weeks ago, Toovey is now the sacred martyr of Manly. During the team’s last home win against Souths, every punter in the Jane Try Stand turned and applauded their idol in the coach’s box. That type of sentiment will only make the tinder box surrounding Watmough even more volatile. One of the Golden Eagles, Wayne Springall, certainly hasn’t forgotten.

“I was very surprised that Anthony did go,” he said this week. “I would have loved him to be a one club player. I can’t believe how many local juniors we’ve let go to Parramatta – there’s also Will Hopoate and Darcy Lussick...They should be playing for Manly, they shouldn’t be playing for Parramatta.

I don’t care what anybody says. I don’t want to be cheering Watmough for Parramatta – he’s a Manly junior and for God’s sake we should have kept him.”

Tackle 4 – Conlon switches sides

The most interesting – and unexpected - observer during Wednesday night’s marathon judiciary hearing was the panel’s ex-chairman Paul Conlon.

A District Court judge, Conlon famously quit his post late last year, in protest of the NRL fining Paul Gallen $50,000 for an offensive tweet. Conlon felt Gallen had not been afforded due process, a principle he was bound to uphold as judiciary chairman for the previous eight years.

Conlon has not been sighted at League Central since, but made a surprise return this week to help Jorge Taufua, Aiden Guerra and Issac Luke rightfully send the NRL’s shoulder charge crackdown into the rubbish bin of history.

The trifecta of not guilty verdicts was the ultimate humiliation for head office. And that’s saying something, given some of the verbal gaffes that have embarrassed Smith’s regime over the past two seasons. The NRL’s response to the shoulder charge dilemma – a knee-jerk reaction executed without thought to the consequences – was exactly the type of leadership Conlon despised. Watching the panel towel-up the NRL from the floor alongside a flock of media, he must have been privately satisfied.

Tackle 5 – Tonsillitis curse strikes again.

Everyone remembers how a pair of crook tonsils floored Greg Inglis before Origin I, resulting in his meekest-ever display in a Maroons jersey. But no-one knew about the battle Sharks prop Chris Heighington faced to get on the field last week.

Heighington’s tonsils were giving him so much agony last Wednesday that he was admitted to hospital overnight. He was discharged the following morning – and somehow managed to take the field against Melbourne on Monday night.

In between, he also did some impressive charity work. Last Saturday night Heighington fronted up to Luna Park with a host of other NRL stars including Luke Burgess, Blake Austin and Curtis Sironen for the annual Save Our Sons gala ball. A favourite of the 13-man code, SOS raised $300,000 for sufferers of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Heighington is also on look-out for another pay day.

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Talks around a one-year contract extension with the Sharks looked to be headed toward fruition, but they’ve since stalled. Maybe a new deal will be done before his next trip to hospital – to have the troublesome tonsils removed at the end of the year. We’ve been told Inglis will also undergo the same surgery once South Sydney’s season is over.

Tackle 6 – GI shouts Souths to the top

There’s nothing better than a good old fashioned bonding night – especially in the heart of enemy territory.

While their bitter rivals the Roosters have given up booze in the lead-up to the finals, Souths players were spotted in high spirits at Randwick bar Cubby House last Saturday. The entire roster and coaching staff, in company with their partners, booked-out the venue – a timely shindig just two days after the team’s slashing win over North Queensland.

And unlike previous get-togethers on the sauce, co-owner Russell Crowe wasn’t left to foot the bill. We’re told Greg Inglis happily shouted everyone dinner and drinks from his own pocket.

Tackle 7 – Agents call a truce over player tragedies.

When they’re not trying to squeeze dollars from club bosses, NRL player agents are at war with each other over the best young talent in the game. It’s a brutal business – and getting the most ruthless operators together under one roof would normally result in something akin to the Hunger Games. But last Friday saw a welcome change at the SCG when about 25 of the industry’s biggest names gathered for a long-overdue discussion about the growing plague of depression and substance abuse among players at all levels.

The loss of one life is too many, but over the past two seasons no less than half a dozen rugby league players from second tier competitions in New South Wales and Queensland have taken their own lives. In many cases, the post-mortem has identified a sudden failure to deal with the pressures associated with making the next step to NRL level.

In short, players become professional from a very young age – sometimes as early as mid-teens. The investment of so much time and effort, only for injury or personal circumstances to intervene, can sometimes be too difficult to bear for young men whose coping mechanisms are far from mature.

Agents play the major role in introducing teenagers to this world, acting as go-betweens with equally competitive clubs. In the early years, they are the only contact point with parents and families – often left behind interstate or abroad in the quest for stardom.

Since the suicides started, the NRL has worked overtime to understand the situation and somehow control it. Educating the agents last week was a huge step forward. They were addressed for eight hours by Dr Jioji Ravulo, a juvenile justice expert from the University of Western Sydney. There were four workshops: depression & anxiety, psychosis, depression and substance abuse. All four are sad realities of modern sport, not just rugby league.