All meetings on hold as clubs continue to play hardball with John Grant, ARLC

John Grant must lobby like a besieged prime minister if he wants to retain his job past December 20 after talks broke down between the clubs and the Australian Rugby League Commission over funding.

Just a day after Grant made a public plea for the clubs to return to the negotiating table and hear out the commission's reasons for having to scale back the monetary package, the chairman was forced to cancel a set of proposed gatherings aimed at restarting the conversation over who gets what slice of the $1.8 billion broadcast deal.

Grant may have "moved heaven and earth" to make the various commissioners available but the 14 NRL clubs lined up against him are playing for keeps. With no discernable mood shift in sight, the meetings were cancelled.

All signs now point to an unavoidable meeting on December 20 where the clubs stand to make their move and oust Grant, unless the commission agrees to reinstate the original deal and hope the clubs agree to work backwards from that point.

Grant has the remaining seven commissioners and the Queensland Rugby League on side and won't blink. Neither will the 14 clubs (minus the NRL-run Titans and Knights) and the NSW Rugby League, which has sided with the clubs in a move Grant finds perplexing.

He must now work overtime to try to change the minds of at least two of the clubs if he is to continue on in his current role and try to finish the work he began as part of the original ARLC five years ago.

But the estranged clubs have made it clear they will be voting as a powerful bloc, with any moves to step out of the ranks likely to be viewed as little more than a betrayal in what they are pitching as a shared cause.