Chief executive Joe Kelly says Manly will offer halves pairing Kieran Foran and Daly Cherry-Evans the biggest contracts in the NRL club's history as the battle to keep the Test stars hots up
Cherry-Evans and Foran are the biggest names who'll be off-contract at the end 2015 and clubs including Canterbury, Parramatta, Canberra and Brisbane are ready to test the water with the pair's respective management teams.
Kelly started work on Monday after finishing his role as chief financial officer for South Sydney, who he joined from English Premier League giants Chelsea in 2007.
He has already hit the ground running by drawing up agreements he hopes will keep Cherry-Evans and Foran with the Sea Eagles for the rest of their careers.
Kelly spent five years at Chelsea and was integral in keeping the Blues from brink of insolvency by persuading Roman Ambramovich to pump his billions into the club and make it one of the biggest in the world.
Although the figures being offered to Cherry-Evans and Foran are chicken feed in comparison to what was required to prop up Chelsea, Kelly said the challenge of keeping them is just as great.
"We want to retain them; it's our absolute No.1 priority," Kelly told AAP.
"They are both back to training by the start of the new year and I hope to have it sorted by then so that as a club we are sorted and settled for the 2015 season.
"I've already done a lot of work on this dollars-wise and we'll be putting to them the best offers we've ever made to any player before."
The departures of big earners such as Anthony Watmough and Glenn Stewart has freed up the cash that will fund deals for Foran and Cherry-Evans, and teammate Jamie Buhrer is hopeful they'll stay.
"I know they love the area and playing alongside each other. But at the same time, I respect whatever decision they make and they'll be no pressure from me," Buhrer said.
"But to have them two both re-sign would be monumental for the club. It's hard to find a young halves pairing that are as good as they are. They have won comps, played Tests.
"It's a no-brainer that we have to do all we can to keep them."
Replies
I think they'll be able to keep one of them. If they do re-sign both they'll be relying on young forwards and backs for a few years and neither will look as good as they once did. I think Manly will struggle to make the 8 this year.
If we offer $1.2 milllion a year for 4 years we'll get Foran.
To have the best halves pairing since Sterlo and Kenny, I think it's worth it,
I think we have enough young cheap forwards for the next few years to maintain it.
Manly won't be able to go above $1 million for each of them, even with 3rd party contracts involved. And as we saw with Anasta and Gasnier, 3rd party deals are never, and can't be, guaranteed by the club.
They'll end up only being able to keep one. We need to get to Foran first before DCE goes!!
If we have to fork out $1.2 million from the salary cap then I don't think Foran would be worth it. We'd be better off retaining Sandow, signing James Roberts and re-signing a couple of younger forwards.
I offer 2M for Foran for next 3 years
You don't even own a footy team
if they keep both players it will be through loyalty only. There is no way they can match the money being offered by other clubs. lets hope for once they are mercenaries looking for a big pay check.
Hence why we need to make him a large and long offer now, with a time limit on it.
Offer $1.2 million a year for 4 years but he needs to get back to us within 1 week.
Get Foran now and Manly will throw everything at DCE.
If we wait and another club grabs DCE, Manly will throw everything at Foran and we are screwed.
Nah you'd be hoping $1 million from the cap and 200k 3rd party
Put him next to a cheap half like Sandow and you've got yourself the best halves pairing in the comp
If we sign Foran I think it's highly unlikely we'll be re-signing Sandow.
On the $1.2 figure, I've explained myself through it on one of the comments below. But if we do in fact spend 20% of our cap on one player I don't think it would be worth it.
I think if you get Foran at $1 million and have Sandow at 500k (both before 3rd party) then $1.5 million of your $6.2 million salary cap is not too bad for the best halves pairing in the game.
If Manly lock up both their halves they're looking at $2 million of their cap going to 2 players!
That's 1/3 of their cap!
Surely we can outbid them.
It also needs to be pointed out that Hayne was looking at $1.4 million a year if he stayed on (the NRL were going to put some of this money in though)
I'd take Sandow and Foran together over just Hayne
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