Penrith boss Phil Gould has called on the NRL to introduce an internal draft to level the playing field and take the air out of the inflated marquee player market.
The Network Nine commentator and premiership-winning coach said players and their managers were holding clubs over a barrel and able to drive up their asking price.
He pointed to the impending moves of Ben Hunt to St George Illawarra and Kalyn Ponga to Newcastle on contracts in excess of $1 million per season as proof that the have-nots of the competition were being forced to pay overs and that was inflating the market.
He said the NRL needed to introduce another market force to level the playing field and suggested that any off-contract player wanting to test the market should be entered into a draft.
NSW's most successful State of Origin coach said that the previous season's last-placed side would get first crack at meeting that player's asking price and that would force the game's biggest stars into re-thinking whether they wanted to leave their club.
"The market for marquee players is so high because there is such high demand and low supply for marquee players, particularly in key positions like your halves, your fullbacks," Gould said on his 'Six Tackles with Gus' podcast.
"Because the market is set by the desperate clubs - the Dragons are desperate for success - they need to buy a player to get out of the doldrums they've been in over the last couple of years.
"So they go out into the market and they play extravagantly for Ben Hunt and that sets the market value for players of that position."
The NRL has reportedly put an offer to the Rugby League Players Association to set next year's salary cap at $8.3 million and Gould said at that mark no player was worth $1 million a year.
He was critical of the constant speculation about player movement which is being driven by the dozens of high profile stars - such as West Tigers' Aaron Woods, Mitchell Moses and James Tedesco, Cronulla centre Jack Bird and Warriors half Kieran Foran - who are off contract at the end of 2017.
He said an internal draft would not only force players to reassess whether to leave their clubs, it would allow the competition's strugglers to be competitive in the player transfer market.
"How can Newcastle replenish its stocks it if can't attract a marquee player? The only way it can is to pay double for probably an ageing player to finish his career at the club and that's not going to help them," Gould said.
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