warrior till i die wrote:No I do not think we have got the salary cap right yet, although we are beginning to get it under control and getting a better balance on the wage structure.
When Ian took over last year we had players such as bailey, barrett, higham, feka, calderwood, fielden who were on a ridiculous salary and they where also on less than convincing short term contracts- didnt we have something daft like 15 players of contract at the end of last season?
How do you know they were on ridiculous salaries? When Barrett, Higham and Calderwood left were we able to go out and sign quality replacements or instead of three highly paid players to replace them, four or more good solid pros? You would think we would be able to do that if they were on such high wages as you suggest but we didn't.
What we did was up the wages of some junior players and sign Roberts and Riddell who were hardly household names.
If we had just got rid of three players on ridiculous wages I'd expect better than that coming into the side despite upping younger players wages.
I think this supports the view of Jinkin Jimmy who used to post here when he said Millward told him personally that Higham and Calderwood were on £70K each which sounds about right for players of their ability and experience.
When people were suggested we would have a spending spree with these three players wages I kept saying I didn't think we would because I didn't think they earned as much as people thought, including Barrett.
Now Ian has had a while sorting contracts out etc we have began to get the salary cap under control, Im sure we re negotiated richards and fekas contracts last year to reduce them.
Ian also seems to be setting targets of 3 year contracts which I think is a good target because it keeps the bulk of the squad together over time.
He brought Roberts in on a four year deal on a whim IMO and are you sure we changed Fekas contract last season? We can't change existing deals (spirit of the cap nonsense) but what I thought we did was give Richards a new contract but Fekas original deal is not up yet.
We still do have very highly payed players, and perhaps they are too highly payed, the likes of fielden riddell and bailey should be on less money in my opinion.
We speculate Fielden is on a fortune but I think if you expect losing these two players wages to free up a lot of cash you will be disappointed. We will need a top class prop so that will cost a fair chunk of Fielden's wage and as with Higham and Calderwood I don't think Bailey is on super star wages.
Another thing which Ian done when he come in was secure the services of our youngsters on longer contracts, I think the likes of sam and joel tomkins signed 3 year extensions when Ian took over.
Personally, Id like to see a larger amount of money put towards the youngsters such as Sam and Shaun because these are the future of the club. At the end of the season when I think bailey will go, we will have a better balance on the salary cap front.
He did do that but as I said above having done so he could only afford to bring in two standard NRL pros not really class players as he just did not free up a lot of money by releasing those three players IMO.
It will be the same this year as we only lose Bailey, Smith and probably Carmont who are established players. If their combined wages come to £200K I'd be surprised so once he has given ST and SA a decent pay rise don't expect some super stars to be joining the side.
Dave
