Oddly enough, unlike most, I had no problems with player options.
Sure, they're instruments to get players across the line but they're misunderstood. People on here do not understand them or consider the bigger picture. Options were offered in lieu of more money. And players that ended up taking the options did so because we were having our guts pulled out after the 2022 grand final, and even before then.
Context matters. Living in absolute idealism and playing the game like it's Supercoach is one for the fans. Average punters with fists of fury screaming to the clouds, finger fighting with their keyboards. Matterson was being offered big money by Redcliffe. We had already lost Reed Mahoney and Isaiah Papali'i before that. Nikore also left through this period for different reasons. The club could not to see anymore players walk. Brown and Moses were just unconditionals. They could not be lost under any circumstances. Enter options.
The timing and mismanagement of the maturities was basically bad luck, management were bending over barrells but were in a no win or balls up position.
We as a club were too inexperienced to combat this. Off the back of the enquiries and shit of 2014, the wooden spoon 2018 no one which included Mon, BA, and the executive board group were capable of standing up. I would go far as saying any club in our position would have done the same.
The dictatored clubs Easts, Broncos, Melbourne would maybe (qualified by alternative ways of beating the cap) have held their ground. But it should be noted than even the Storm and Roosters entertain player options. Think Harry Grant. Cheese. Even for their best up-coming rookies. Think Pezet. Sualauiv Faalogo (spell checked).
Penrith have amazingly stood out in this situation, mainly because of Matt Cameron and the stability of the Coach and the worlds best player being anchors in the Storm (no pun). Manly and Broncos stand out for wasting the value they had accrued. The Dogs under Gus Gould are another who don't use player options.
Look at the clubs in the same position. They are not much different in return. Cronulla, Canberra, Gold Coast, Tigers, Cowboys, Titans, Dragons. Look at that list and they have all come from similar positions to us.
Actually, we maybe doing it better now. At the least financially we are. And I have had no problems with any of the players we lost under Ryles. None of them. Not until now with Simmosson. That one is hard to read. It might be personal reasons we are yet to understand. And it's yet to resolve under a cloud of speculation. It is no so much the value of the player as the type of player and what he offers the club in terms of player commardie his said "love" for the club and the perception we are moving forward as one.
Brown is a burnout and as such a significant loss as the player he once was. The fact that Knights came out with their rediculous offer was a prayer answered.
I have never seen this site 1EE as dumb as we currently are with the supposition and judgements being made. By all means make it speculative as to what happens and throw in ideas but you would swear the NRL is on the brink of a major War breaking out and the game in disrespect.
The game has never been rated higher or been financially more succesful.
Yes there is plenty of reason's for things to improve, rules, refs, judgements etc. But the amount of people that overall look at their club soley and only because that is their bias is a ongoing concern. A bit like the famous John F. Kennedy adress of 1961: "Ask not what our country can do for you but what you can do for your country." That year we won our sixth-straight spoon. And you think times are tough now. Snowflakes.
It is stunning in that we are not recognising that if the game doesn't grow, neither will their club, and sections they want to see improve.
Whilst not everyone needs to be supportive of the NRL and what they are doing, they should at least aknowledge the sucess they have achieved.
I know myself that it doesn't seem that long ago that I was sitting on wooden plank seats around the perimeter of Cumberland Oval getting splinters out of my backside watching a game on a mudheap with the players reward being cold showers in the dressing room. I was 10 years old then and we have come a long way. A long bloody way.
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There has to be other ways other than options to get players to buy into what youre doing. Theyre the last resort of a desperate club who are running out of strong points to sell.
The culture of the place has to be strong, their willingness to put the team first - a lot of that comes back to proving to them that they are getting top level development and theyre not going to be playing in a team in the bottom half of the ladder if they buy in. If you cant do that then you turn to player options which is not where you want to be. It creates uncertainty around the future of the roster and is indicitive of players not buying in. Its hard to sell the club to juniors and recruits when our players are putting themselves in the shop window every 5 minutes..its awful for stability.
Losing someone like Blaize was a prime example. We played him in first grade as an undeveloped kid and it was costing us games. No doubt you could see theres a player there who wants to compete but he wasnt ready. How he had an option to hit the market as soon as he hit first grade is mismanagement. To complicate it further BA constantly said he didnt know where his future was, didn't know what position was his best and his development was all over the place. He's developed as a player more in 6 months at Penrith than he did in his time here and thats reflective of where we were at as a club and why we're not a place kids happily committed their futures to.
Jahrome Hughes recently took huge unders to commit to the Storm without options in his contract. He knows hes getting world class coaching , development and the chance to compete year on year . He said he did it out of loyalty to the Storm who have done so much for his career. Our Kiwi half who is half as good had a 6 year deal with us on more money than Jahrome and it wasn't good enough for him to not go to market. The culture of this place sucked.
Although it hasn't fully transferred to the scoreboard yet, key players at our club like Moses have fully bought into the change and removed his option. Juniors are re-committing before they have to and are obviously seeing some development and the proof of young guys being developed into NRL talent. Any one who didn't buy in completely has been told theyre free to do whats best for themselves... the club is on the right path and if we can start moving up the table quickly in the next 12-18 months options wont be needed in the near future. So much has changed at Parra since BA left. In my opinion BA was an unqualified coach we could excuse being here 2014-2017. 2018 he shouldve been canned but we stuck with him for another 7 seasons, Happy for the first time since the club is showing some growth and moving the right way.
This comment is far closer to the reality of our situation. Excellent post.
Great post SP.
Just on Blaize - I didn't rate him that highly last year - despite all the hype. In the short time he's been at Penrith, I genuinely believe his combination with Cleary will be far more dangerous than Cleary's combination was with Luai.
The systems are just poles apart - although I do think we are finally going in the right directions.
Snottie, as usual, an excellent post. And another great big-picture blog Pops.
Even if we haven't moved on from player options, the club moved on from player options long ago in a distant galaxy.
Three-and-a-half light years ago to be more specific. Shortly after the 2022 grand final there was a strategic shift. Well before our new chairman or Ryles. Since May 2023, we've probably had 30-40 contracts and dozens of long-term contracts locking in our most talented juniors but no player options. We've had a few recent signings in the club's favor though (Fox, JDB).
To me that suggests that internally the club knew they needed to move in a new direction, many years ago. It wasn't a sudden finger in the wind moment last year, like many of us assume. Perhaps, the club stayed on the BA bus (with some trepidation and misalignment) in hope that the 2022 squad could build on that grandfinal. They gave them 18 months — until circa round 10, 2024 before they decided to pull the plug internally.
The issue with player options is you can't plan your cap well. That's the reason Gus and Matt Cameron, heads of the only two clubs besides us now, don't dable in them. Pretty much every other club does. Our problem was with the volume we used.
The Dogs, Panthers and us - are the three clubs that don't dabble with them - which is kind of ironic. The Panthers have a 21-22-man cap team while Gus uses his AI and a small army of spies. It's enough of a headache squeezing approved-NRL contracts in the hard-cap even if you have other ways on the side of circumnavigating it like The Fantastic-Four's Stretch. Something the Dogs, Roosters and even the Sharks, Manly and Cowboys would know about. That's one area we're seem to be working on with our improving relationships after the Dark Ages.
We are improving off-field and in culture, in resilences, in our habits, as well as our structures. There's alignment in the club. But we need finding-ways-to-win, as we still self-sabotage through errors. There's a missing link in our habits, somewhere. It could be just needing different cattle or tweaking the things some existing players are doing.
Very good comment. Particularly the paragraph with Blaize. That's how clueless BA was, as if you wouldn't know what he's best position was. Blaize was always a 5/8th and the Penrith coaching staff knew that straight away and gave him the opportunity. He was never a fullback that was for sure.
Matt Cameron was discussing Blaize with James Graham on the Bye Round last year. He admitted he told Blaize, "Before we worry about what position you'll play, let's make you a first grader."
Yeah interesting thought. You wonder what Ryles would have done with Blaize. If it were me, I'd be letting him put pressure on Brown's 5/8 spot to keep Brown on his toes. Both players were mis-managed in this circumstance, Brown because he got too comfortable and Blaize because we forced positions on him to which he clearly wasn't suited. It's good to see that Ryles has an attitude that any player can play NRL and if you falter he'll try someone else in your position.
@Snottie Pimpin
Great post Snottie, when I write a blog the idea is to create discussion. You have achieved that greatly.
Anyone from outside our club or even game would read the blog and your reply post and say that have a good picture of it.
There are a number of aspects that range from business to culture in this discussion. The business aspects are real in that in most forms of business options are an integral tool used in all manner of operations.
It maybe ok for me to say options are not a bad thing but it can be like getting into an argument over vaccination i.e. the good far outweighs the bad. In our case I think it is very clear that the cultural aspects for Parramatta were not developing. Obviously in better managed circumstances they can be very strategically qualified, not to forget in our case the option on Dyllan Brown has worked marvellously (not culturally) and I think the precedents of long contracts is again shown up as undesirable. Lets call that one as bad management and good luck!
Further on the value of culture, which I am a great believer in was when BA took over and put together his rag and bones team, he had players there that would die for him. The culture was magnificent and I was so proud of the club. The fact that this culture was temporary most certainly reflects on BA, as he failed to grow with the club and his players and the culture went just as quickly.
Moving forward the culture you referred to with Jerome Hughes is unique in itself, personally I am amazed it has lasted as long as it has, as I expected that Melbourne was never the right place for a NRL team. How wrong have I been.
Back to pragmatism from a Parra point of view and giving those accolades to Melbourne, who better than to have as your new man a prodigy of that Melbourne structure and before that the Roosters.
Onward Christian soldiers!
Bravo 👏
In an ideal world we wouldn't need player options but sometimes that is what is needed to get a signature over the line due to us being an under performing club that has always struggled to attract talent.
It should be better managed though, with only 1 option per contract and for it to be activated and aligned prior to November 1 when other players can negotiate.
This would allow us to hit the market to replace the player for when they are leaving. As it is now most player options are activated early in the year for the following year when the best off contract players are already signed as players are now signing players more than 12 months out.
I would also avoid giving young players these options and save them for experienced and proven players and we need an edge to sign them.
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