As we all know, the Eels have their halves off-contract beyond 2023 and are free to negotiate elsewhere at this point. The Eels now must make the call on these players. They must decide if they want both players, possibly only one or neither. I know that the longer these players remain available, the more offers they receive will increase their prices. What the Eels must not do is pay more than they think these blokes are worth. Paying overs for 2 or more players at the same time is crazy, especially highly paid players. If you have 3 $1,000,000 players getting roughly 20% above what you wanted to pay your salary cap and playing roster will quickly become a problem.
Personally, I think $1,800,000 per season between both players is the maximum I would offer. At that price they would be the highest-paid halves combo in the NRL In my opinion, (if the figures reported are accurate) the Eels are already paying at least 25% too much for Gutherson. I couldn't pay more than $600,000 per season for King Gutho. Paying overs for Gutho may result in losing 1 or possibly both halves. The snowball effect of 1 or more deals above true player value can derail a club for many years.
Replies
1.8 million per season isn't going g to get you Moses and Brown.
2-2.2m minimum is a realistic number for our halves. If we can get Moses for 1.2 and Brown for 800-900k we will be doing well.
I would guess that if our halves got $2,200,000 between them they would be the highest paid halves combination in the comp. If the Eels pay 3 million between Moses Brown and Gutherson they will be in all sorts of trouble.
Until luai is off contract at panthers and Hughes at storm.
I think the Panthers halves would be higher, or will be the next contract Luai gets.
You are 100% correct Slippery. Have said it for months. You simply can't pay your two halves the kinda money being talked about and expect to have a balanced team. Unless you have two Thurstons or two Cronks that are winning you games on their own week in week out and can supplement weakness's in your squad elsewhere. We have too many areas that need attention , if we didn't , I couldn't care less what they paid this pair. But we do , and we need every dollar available to fill these voids. If we didn't overpay Gutherson , we'd have been able to keep either Reed or Mahoney no doubt . If we overpay Brown ( or Moses ) then something's gotta give elsewhere. I'm less concerned with Moses's offer than I am Browns.
We dont have these quality of players in either of them. They simply aren't that good a pairing. Moses is half a great pairing , Browns miles off . Brown is a huge risk as to whether he will reach his potential. If these guys want to stay and stay together , they're going to have to do a Roosters and stay for less to stay at Parra. Melbourne have gone downhill since they had to start turning away talent to keep their overpaid halves. On the flip side , Penrith are paying Luai a modest salary and they're still shedding talent . You can pay these guys both over a million bucks. Browns no where even remotely worthy of that yet . He may get it to go elsewhere , but he's not worth it. Moses does majority of the work , if Browns a million then Moses is 1.8. If we lose brown we have 900k to find a decent replacement for 2024. If browns seriously wanting to keep improving he will sign for 850-900k , if he's just a money hungry little shit he will go to The Warriors or some shit hole and get 1.1 and end up in the Superleague .
Time to wake up slippery. if we dont have 2.2million available at a minimum, then we dont keep both. It may very well be more, my guess is $2.4m could keep them and i say could.
I dont know that they are worth that. Mitch is Brown not yet, but the market will dictate and i think some clubs are going to offer massive massive coin to lure them. How do we compete with that.
Dolphins have 1.4m available - Gus over at the Dogs apparently has a new sombereo or carport to cover their new kennel cap, the Tigers have 1.2m available after offloading Brooks and then we have an increase of $1.5m approx in the salary cap raising, from in the $9.6m to $11m range.
With these sorts of numbers available we are about to see the first $1.5m a year salary cap paid player. Who will it be.
Agree 💯, no one can convince me that paying Gutho 780k is good cap management - Gutho is overpaid and the way contract negotiations played out was a joke. Moses and DB have taken a while to develop, 2 mill or approx 25 percent of the salary cap should be the absolute maximum but given struggling clubs are desperate I wouldn't be too critical of Eels management if they let one of them go especially if they had a great replacement in mind - Joey Manu is worth 1 mill in the open market and is paid less than Gutho and DB.Dylan Edwards is on 500k he should be valued at 700k, all of that said what's hurting us is junior development and simply becoming a recruitment club was always going to bite us at some stage and we are there now
I think moses at $1.1m-$1.2m and Brown at $900k should be enough to get it done.
If we lose moses we are totally screwed, JA is nowhere near a first grade quality halfback, if you think he is you are completely delusional.
If we lose Brown then shifting gutho to 6 and finding a fast fullback is the go. Gutho at fullback isn't a $780k player, at 6 he could be.
If Brown isn't producing the goods every week, he ain't worth the money that's been thrown around.
Tell me Munster producers every week, Munster plays about 5 or 6 extremely high level games a year and is considered a super star worthy of the big bucks, the rest of the season he is just an average player.
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