ROUND Five is only half-over and already in the National Rugby League we have no side that is undefeated and no side winless.

And still people want to scrap, or dramatically overhaul, the salary cap.

Gold Coast's 20-16 win over Melbourne on Friday night inflicted the Storm's first defeat of the year, six days after Cronulla beat Parramatta 11-0 to snap their own 286-day losing streak.

Even the carefully stage-managed and some-would-say sterile American pro sports leagues can rarely boast a field so even that after just four and a half weeks of competition, where every side is off the mark and no-one is yet to come a cropper.

We've had eight champions in 12 years of NRL football and here's the sting - we haven't even needed a player draft of any kind to achieve this.

Critics of the salay cap like to get in first and describe these facts as "spin". That way they think they take the intellectual high ground. Well, I'm happy to stand on the low ground and lob the heaviest rocks and anything else I can gtr my hands on at that rotten 'hill' of theirs.

The whole idea of a salary cap (and a draft for that matter) is to achieve the sort of results I have just described. That's what they're there for. So if we get that result, the salary cap works.

It works. Full stop.

The salary cap can be - and probably is being - cheated. Ever since the Scott Prince and Cameron Smith issues broke, every man and his league roundsman has taken great pleasure in throwing up stories of free fishtanks, dodgy cars, golf games with the club chairman and, when these no-name anecdotes have run out, brown paper bags.

But there is a singular and damning flaw to this argument. Where else in society to we abolish or soften rules simply because people are breaking them? More of that later.

It is not a bad thing that when Brisbane get injuries to Israel Folau, Justin Hodges and Corey Parker that they have to field 11 players from Toyota Cup against St George Illawarra on Friday night.

Quite the opposite, it is a good thing. The premiership stat above would be even better for the game if Brisbane had not won four of those 12  titles. The system is unashamedly aimed at making them lose. They've had their go - now they have to lose.

The NRL is not a charity organisation and it is not your local under sevens team. It is a sports league aimed an generating income that should eventually filter down to your local under sevens team.

For that to happen, it needs uncertainty of outcome in as many matches as possible. That's why people go through the gates, that's why the television companies pay the big bikkies. That it has done that and still allowed players to stay in their local area is a staggering achievement.

You might say that Melbourne have won three of those premierships and continues to win. Yeah, they win games with the likes of Luke MacDougall, Dane Nielsen, Ryan Hinchcliffe, Todd Lowrie and Bryan Norrie in their side while being forced by the cap to shed Dallas Johnson, Matt King, Brett Kimmorley, Matt Orford and Folau to other clubs.

If they can do that, they deserve to be successful.

As if giving players the chance to earn more money from sponsors and third parties is going to help do anything but build up the clubs with rich sponsors!  Most clubs struggle to fill their current marquee player allotment because they can't find anyone to stump up the money.

And do you seriously believe Canberra would be able to find the same sort of dosh from sponsors as the Roosters? Really....

Back to the flawed logic. Plenty of drivers get away with speeding - every day. I do - you do. Should we therefore just tear down the signposts and build an autobahn past every preschool?

Or put another way, people get away with murder more than occasionally. Maybe we should ... well, not make murder legal but "relax" the laws so that they are more in touch with "the real world" and keep people in society, the way we want to keep our players in league.

Like, maybe we should make it that you can murder someone if if they make you really, really cross.

Beware: if that happens the first people I'll be going for with a blunt object will be those who want to dismantle the salary cap.