Phil Carter and myself and Matt

were talking the other day about the way Rugby is buying League players and about how this was unfair on blokes who had devoted themselves to Rugby - blokes who had sold chook raffles and barbecues to keep their club going - in the hope that someday they would play for Australia. Now here again after Sailor and Rogers who had not sold even one sausage sandwich for Rugby we have more stories of Gasnier and others being paid to go and play Rugby. This is not fair and it doesn't matter how good the player is. My ex-Uncle in law Barry who was secretary of Barraba League told the club he was not going to leave his wife and children alone to themselves every Friday night just to go down to the pub to sell chooks to help pay players in a game which should be played for fun and not money. I understand the complication that TV buys programming rights and that if a player is helping to fill a programming slot where TV would otherwise be paying royalty rights for a rerun of Top Gun, then the player gets "performance money" and that Sailor, Rogers and Gasnier might be good Tom Cruise substitutes. But that does not mean it is fair. What is the solution? Like the Dafur women and babies, just accept that some things in human life are not fair?