To an extent I think that the club may even be exaggerating things a little in order to ensure that our youngsters on the cusp of the NRL don't look at the fact that a few big names have left and think they're going to automatically qualify for jumps onto big money without having worked their asses off to earn it.
As far as I'm concerned it puts us back in a position where we need to shop for players wisely rather than use the roosters philosophy of splashing big dollars at the one season wonders that have made a big splash in their rookie year. It's been far too long since we've recruited talent that was hungry for their debuts and stuck behind established players. RFM is the only player in recent years that I can say fits that category.
Our success over the next few seasons will come down to picking players that deserve promotion but who are behind a long list of established players. Hopefully guys like Cogger will be among the first of a wave of good youngsters we pick up at the right time in their careers. When we signed him he had an uncertain path into the NRL with a group of other halves seemingly ahead of him in the pecking order. It seems like Dean Pay is willing to take chances on young talent as opposed to Hasler who had a habit of recruiting solid players in the middle of uninspired careers because he'd spent big money on guys with big reputations.
I look at some of the recruitment decisions we made while Hasler and Dib were running things and see that some poor and probably lazy decisions were made. I don't hate Hopoate, but I suspect he's on some pretty decent coin for a player that hasn't regularly stood up and shown that he can dominate in a number of years. He's not without talent, but I suspect that many clubs are getting better value for money from players with smaller reputations. We picked up Williams on what at the time was reputedly marquee dollars and he spent a few years here doing no more than being a squad filler type player rather than a marquee player. We came very close to signing Fifita on marquee money until he spilled the beans about only wanting to join a club he disliked because the coin was right. At the same time we've seen a lot of decent young talent move on from the club while we were paying overs for guys like Williams. I'd much rather we kept Finucane over Williams.Williams was a better player on the best days of his career, but once established he lost the hunger and seemingly the monster factor. Finucane has been slighly better than solid his whole career, but wouldn't attract the same price tag and is an honest player that doesn't slack off.
This situation gives the club a really good opportunity to show that they can cut it as squad managers. We faced some years where instead of releasing players when they exceeded their value for money we've retained them at the expense of decent depth. I'd like to see us pick up some high quality 18-19 year olds that we can develop over the next few years. We will lose some of them, but hopefully we can inspire other good youngsters to come to our club by showing that they can better their careers here. Hasler always seemed happier to pick a tested 25 yo than an untested 20 yo that was performing better in the lower grades and in doing so it probably sent a message to other quality youngsters that they can't fast track their careers here even if they're playing well.
