I saw on talking parra podcast a idea was floated around by them which I think makes perfect sense and would be perfect.I was also thinking bout it to since the news broke out.
So Sam walker it's been no secret the roosters are open to releasing him effective immediately and here's were the swap deal comes into play.
Mitch Moses goes to chooks to compete for a comp and link up with his bsf Teddy.His getting at the end stage of his career and is to injury prone.
In return eels get sam walker,premiership winner and only 24 and qld halfback.Which sorts out our post Moses plans.
Lets be real Moses isn't winning anything here and dosent have long left,and Sammy Walker still young and still has his best footy ahead of him.I think it's a win win.
We know roosters love there veteran half's.!
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Newcastle is in the classic 'honeymoon phase' with a young roster. Right now, guys like Hopwood, Crouch, Manuleleua, McEwan, Smith, Hunt are delivering massive value on peanuts. But success changes everything.
They are also loosing some decent experience in Frizell and Gagai. Perhaps Best too.
The second those young blokes taste a Grand Final run, their market value skyrockets. You add a $1.3M+ contract for Dylan Brown, Ponga on $1.4M, and throwing big money at Trey Mooney just to lure him north, and the cap math simply stops working. They can't upgrade 6 or 7 breakout kids simultaneously. Other clubs will raid them for depth, and Newcastle will end up top-heavy and thin very quickly
I could be way off, but i do not see Newcastle as a top 4 club in the betting. I want to see them after round 10 to see if they continue their form.
Your forgetting the caps also rising and could be between 15-20 mill when the new tv money kicks in.
The biggest worry I have for any teams is expansion and lack of elite talent that's what drives the prices to what they are and is why development is so important.
1.3-1.4 for Brown and Ponga is going to be a steal when that new tv money kicks the cap north.The teams that don't have these spines and key players locked up are the ones that'll suffer.Much like musical chairs don't be left without a seat when the music stops.
If you look at recent history, its very rare for a "Cinderella" team to make the finals the next year.....either side of our 2018 side, Penrith in that era, Canberra last year, our 2022 GF side. Depending on the bounce of the ball, referrees decisions and that almighty INJURY toll anything can knock a young inexperienced side to the shit house. Would not surprise me in the slightest if Newcastle doesn't make the 8 next year, Canberra will come surging back and the mighty eels can be minor premiers......it amazes me when people on here say Parramatta has to wait so long to make the 8 or the top 4, any side can with the right luck, bounce of the ball, referrees decisions and injury toll. Interesting when you look at the premiers, without their 2 high flying wingers, they would not have made it, this and we have people on here decrying paying top money for wingers....arguably without the "right" wingers your side has no hope! hey! let's sack JAC on a principle?
This year we had 3 of the eight finalists have 50 points scored against them, Roosters, Dolphins, Cowboys.....was Cronulla one? Newcastle? even Penrith got their arses kicked once or twice.
Even if Ponga and Brown sit on fixed marquee contracts, the remaining 28 spots on their roster get significantly more expensive. When the cap jumps to $16M or higher, solid middle forwards asking for $400k today will demand $650k to $700k because every single club has extra cash sitting in the bank. Any theoretical savings on fixed marquee deals gets instantly wiped out paying baseline market rates across the rest of the squad.
So when Sharpe, Crossland and Smith all come available, can they keep them all or at least 2 without sacrificing losing McEwan and maybe Manuleleua or Mooney. They will still have a good team, but can it be maximised?
On top of that, expansion raids from incoming teams like Perth and PNG will directly target squad depth and emerging talent. Brand new franchises with completely clean salary caps will easily throw massive offers at quality starting edges,hookers, and bench forwards. Top-heavy teams simply won't have the room to match those offers, which is how reliable depth gets completely gutted.
It also ignores relative value. Extra broadcast money doesn't give Newcastle a financial advantage over rival clubs because every team gets the exact same increase. If everyone's cap goes up by 30%, player valuations simply rise by 30% across the board. Tying up nearly $3M in two playmakers leaves a team just as top-heavy under a $17M cap as it does under a $12M cap.
A rising salary cap never makes top-heavy squads deeper. It just raises the price tag of keeping a 30-man roster together,while locking up massive coin in two players who overlap in playing style leaves zero room to build a dominant forward pack
That's the flipside and that's why having a good recruitment manager is key and what it also does when you commit is development of young players becomes key.
Penrith are the prime example of this and have managed to stay relevant by doing so.Are Newcastle that probably not but next year we shall see.
Itll be interesting this Cinderella take as this past season how much of the flak will fall on Holbrook if they drop out of the 8 as suggested by Popsand alike as they certainly have enough talent there to make the 8 and beyond again.
Yes, agree in principle with the overall thrust, the Politis edict may help to put a cap (no pun) on some of the so called mega stars salaries continuing to rise.
The more I think of players like Best and even Burton going to 1m or plus is not really justified, unless you are desperate....like Parra is.
St George have definitely paid over the top for some of their's most notably Keon....watching him again in the WC only confirms my thoughts of his overating, I have it on good reports he was transacted at 950 on the cap and and a further 450 on TPA. Australia's forwards in the World Cup are pretty pedestrian
When you look at someone like Cleary being talked at 1.5m (fair enough).....realistically no half should be closer than 400k in comparison. i.e Moses grossly overpaid at anything over 1m. Injuries cloud Turbo and Latrell who could be in that high bracket (stratosphere of Cleary) but realistically why would you pay it.....Moses even fully fit still does rise to those levels as a match changer.
Keep in mind every player has standout day's, Wakeman had a great day for Fiji last weekend, he is not going to be Manly's first choice halfback next year as an example. Volkman come's into those same categaries..
Using Penrith as the blueprint for surviving a top-heavy cap ignores a pretty massive reality: Penrith sits on the single largest junior nursery in Australian sport across Western Sydney. Newcastle has a great regional catchment, but no club in the NRL can match Penrith's sheer volume of junior elite talent.
Even then, Penrith still proves the point. Because they locked top-tier money into Cleary, Yeo, and Fisher-Harris, they watched Crichton, Burton, Kikau, Koroisau, Luai, and Turuva all walk out the door for massive offers elsewhere. Penrith survived those exits because of an unprecedented pathway system, not because top-heavy caps don't cause roster drain.
As for Holbrook, coaching definitely matters, but a coach can only select the 30-man squad he’s given. If your cap locks up nearly $3M in two blokes and expansion clubs pick off your mid-tier depth and emerging forwards, no amount of good coaching stops an injury crisis from exposing a thin roster.
Good development helps you survive, but relying on budget junior fill-ins to constantly bail out a top-heavy salary cap is a high-risk game.
LB, think you may find that some teams in QLD have decent catchments too. Brisbane / Nth Cows and Redcliffe all have great and large areas and good kids. Newcastle have a huge talent group to choose from and in some way it is too large; hence why Easts took over the central coast in some way.
Warriors also have a decent net.
There definitely needs to be balance in the squad from a financial and value for money perspective. Penrith show one way of doing this, with players on very big money offset by rookies on minimum pay. Some clubs pull this more into a middle ground, which is where Parra tends to operate. That just means you need to centre the value for money on those middle players, who need to lift beyond their pay, so to speak. Inevitably they will then look for better pay elsewhere. We saw this after 2022 and we lost a lot of players. The problem was that we couldn't replace them because our junior development was not where it needed to be. We couldn't foresee this happening and so didn't start to recruit players in lower grades who could make the progression to fill the gaps.
Regardless of how you do this, clubs need to understand that they will lose players every year, and moreso if they are successful. The trick is to be able to replace those players so you are not left with gaps in the NRL squad, like we have seen at Parra since 2023.
How good would deardon look in an eels jersey
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