Yes, I do think we're the last Sydney club a player will sign for. We'll also be tipped bottom 4 again next season (I'll personally predict 2nd/3rd last). I believe $ and results are more important to players then history and culture.
We're not going to back end deals again like we did with Foran, Woods, etc. It just isn't comparable what so ever, we tried to cheat the salary cap (by predicting it's growth years in advance). We'll have to pay a higher flat rate tho.
Any player that we want to sign that another club is interested in we're not going to be able to sign by paying their value (Ramien, Koroisau and Ese'ese, I believe more players will come out over the next few months). There's no reason why they would come to a club in our situation for the same amount of $, as simple as that. Who else was willing to give Britt and Stimson (also no source on Stimson's salary) opportunities when we signed them? I also don't believe these types of players are going to make much of a difference to our results. As it stands I don't think either of them actually make our 17.