By Tom Decent26 May 2018 — 6:00am
Former Bulldogs chief executive Raelene Castle has broken her silence over the salary cap mess at Canterbury, saying she is “very comfortable” with what transpired during her time in charge and that new coach Dean Pay needs to accept it will take time to build up the roster he wants.
Bulldogs officials have revealed the club cannot be active in the transfer market until 2021 because players were offered back-ended contracts while Des Hasler was coach.
Comfortable: Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle says she has no problems with how she left the Bulldogs.
Comfortable: Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle says she has no problems with how she left the Bulldogs.
Photo: AAP
Castle, now the Rugby Australia chief, was CEO at Canterbury for four years until last May and has attracted criticism for her role in the club's handling of the salary cap along with Hasler and deposed chairman Ray Dib.
Speaking to Fairfax Media on Friday she said she had a clear conscience about her time at the helm of the Bulldogs.
“I’m very comfortable with the plans that the recruitment committee had been working on in relation to delivering what Des wanted; to try and win a premiership over those two years,” Castle said at Spotless Stadium, the new location for the Sydney Sevens in February.
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“He worked on a roster, we worked on a roster with a recruitment committee that we believe delivered outcomes for those next two years. Then Des's contract was terminated, a new coach came in and the coach has got a version of how he wants to run things and those two things don't match.
“[If Pay] wants to make changes, he's going to have to work through that. A new coach comes, as many coaches do - Nathan Brown coming into Newcastle, Ricky Stuart coming into Canberra - those things take time to evolve into the way the head coach wants.”
Pressed on contracts specifically and whether there were any regrets over how they was handed out, Castle replied: “There was two marquee players signed at the end of last year in Aaron Woods and Kieran Foran. That's as much as I'm comfortable to say.”
Between seven and 10 Bulldogs players are on back-ended contracts for next year, while the club is also paying five players, including James Graham and Sam Kasiano, to play for rival clubs. Canterbury's roster problems have been attributed to the club having worked towards an estimated new salary cap of $10m for this season when the ultimate figure ended up being $9.4m.
While NRL has said it is the responsibility of clubs to manage how they contract players, the Bulldogs have already implemented a number of new signing protocols to ensure things don’t get out of hand again.
Castle’s comments come in the wake of claims by former Wallabies coach Alan Jones that she was the “architect of the Canterbury Bulldogs ridiculous back-ended contract policy”.....
Replies
...maybe we lose the spoon by default:) ?
If Alan Jones says it was her then you can guarantee it wasn’t!
She does make a valid point though regarding Foran and Woods. Everyone around here generally dislikes both these players but the fact is they are high profile players and Dean Pay can’t get the best out of them. That’s technically not her fault.
Exactly Coryn. Difference is dogs will definitely not have a no TPA signing policy to recover!
Like Brad said in his MMM interview we have many contract spots to fill shortly think it’s ten, with many at the end of their footy days. Trouble it how do we fill those without the benefit of them not being all on Cap? ESP with where we are finding ourselves on the ladder now ...looking very unattractive. Just hope the juniors that are being talked up are ready?
When is she going to deny being a woman?
Haha!
Ahaha
She doesn't actually deny anything, saying "we worked on a roster with a recruitment committee that we believe delivered outcomes for those next two years". Which means she, as CEO, not only knew about it and was "comfortable" (she endorsed it).
Yeah that’s how it reads to me too. Stuff forensic investigations are made of you think? How can they be unable to recruit until 2021 and have that much blackened also Ape...smells stinky?
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