HOW fair is the National Rugby League competition, given its salary cap problems? The Melbourne Storm can elude it well enough to build a title-winning roster, yet once it is discovered to have been so easily collapsible, players talk down the NRL itself - and some might jump ship to the Aussie Rules camp.

Could the harsh penalty imposed by the NRL on the Storm end up driving league players straight into the gleefully waiting arms of the Australian Football League's to newest clubs, the Gold Coast and Western Sydney?

That's what the latest on the AFL-NRL transfer wheel suggests. Supposedly the Brisbane Broncos' Karmichael Hunt will suit up for the Gold Coast from 2011, while Hunt's team-mate Israel Folau is to be paid three dollars a minute for four years as a lure for Kevin Sheedy's Western Sydney side before he's even pulled on a shirt.

Would any of this have happened if the NRL hadn't told the Storm they couldn't score any premiership points at all this season - on top of having the 2007 and 2009 titles erased from the record books?

I understand the principle - hit them hard where it hurts - but surely docking the Storm points for only the first month of the season prior to the cap rort coming out would have been more sensible? That way they are still given a handicap, but have something for the fans to cheer about every other week. Without the season-long penalty, the Storm, on current results, would actually be in with a semi-final chance.

The Wests Tigers' Benji Marshall agreed. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on May 9, he said "this solution has done more harm than it should have."

Marshall said he still loved testing himself against the best players - and if that means the Storm then so be it.

"There is no doubt the competition will be missing something if they are not in it to win it," he added.

"I'd rather play against them in a grand final than know they were denied the chance to get there."

Marshall reckoned the Storm players would have known nothing about the club's financial dealings, but they are now an open book - as are offers from rival sports.

"With all this money on offer from other codes, why would Israel Folau say no?" he said.

However, Marshall said the NRL may never find another Folau.

Online rugby league historian and columnist Sean Fagan, also writing in the Morning Herald on the same day, said league of all brands of football should protect the interests of its players in a professional sense.

"After all, unlike every other sport, it only came into existence at all as a means to provide fairer treatment for the men who provide us with our weekly football thrills," he added.

"History tells us that once a dominant code begins to lose star players - and then fans - it is practically impossible to gain that support back. The key ingredient for keeping ownership of a territory, or making ground in a new one, is expediency - to do what is for the greater good of those who play if, even if it is unfair to others."

Witness the AFL - which will ignore its own salary cap and draft to give a distinct advantage on start-up to both the Gold Coast and Western Sydney teams.

Just as strongly then, Fagan said, "NRL clubs have to fight individually on behalf of their code".

"Should the [AFL's two new teams] succeed, rugby league will have a formidable opponent for the rest of its existence," he wrote.

"Tactically, the best opportunity rugby league has to quell and dissuade the AFL's ambition is here and now, by ensuring the NRL is the most compelling and star-blessed competition it can be."

As for how star-blessed, well, the sky's the limit according to Penrith coach Matt Elliot. He was quoted in the Morning Herald as suggesting the NRL start buying AFL players - including Geelong star Gary Ablett Jr.

"Our goal shouldn't be to equalise the situation, it should be to reverse it," he said of the talent pool issue between the sports.

Elliot's other ideas included getting Perth's next NRL team to poach West Coast Eagles' Fijian-born ruckman Nic Naitanui and trying to lure more players from the English rugby league series.

Coming full circle, Elliot said the expansion of the NRL should start with returning the Storm to active points for season 2010.

"I'd rather play against the Melbourne Storm over the cap than see Billy Slater or Greg Inglis go to another sport," he added.

So that's the point - nothing's fair, but is the ultra-competitive world of big-time sport ever run by an edict to play fair?