I assume that many of the selections this year have been based on salary cap restrictions.
Will the release of Sandow mean that we can play more players ie. Matterson, Toutai, Henry, Nelson. Or do we only have a problem with our second tier cap and therefore we still cannot select certain players.
Surely when you release your first choice halfback at this time of the year, the NRL has to give some leniency?
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With 8 weeks of the season left (plus 4 weeks of finals, plus 4 weeks "annual leave") you could probably say that there is one third (four months) of Sandow's annual contract abandoned.... If the $50K he reportedly got is for accrued "annual leave", then there's probably three months salary left over.
On $500K p.a., three months would be $125K that we now don't have to pay him. I would say that money is available to use in our NRL Salary Cap - Sandow's "value" could be reduced by that amount, but he'd still stay in our top 25.
I think the only think we can do with that spare cap amount would be to "front end" a couple contracts into this season, to make a bit more space for next season (when Sandow won't be in our top 25). That space may be able to be used to help contribute to a contract extension for 2016, that we haven't been able to announce or register (e.g. Hopoate?)?