Shaun Johnson consolidated thread

Bulldogs09

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Only my guess but club didn’t announce in email to Members about dwz.

Maybe trying to line couple signings up to send that with that announcement and week off buys them Time.
 

Philmus

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I would have thought it’s a done deal by now. Warriors have signed 2 players and are lining up with them next week. What’s the go with delayed announcements or signatures. Linked to everyone snd signed no one. Doesn’t look to good atm
Agreed - don't know why the club has to wait to announce everything if/when people sign. The media beat it up as 'as good as done' and the club says absolutely nothing. What does waiting achieve? Warriors announced Townsend yesterday after it only coming out that they were interested pretty much days ago. Reports they wanted DWZ, a week later they had him but we've had silence from the Bulldogs for over 2 months now..
 

El Padrino

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Agreed - don't know why the club has to wait to announce everything if/when people sign. The media beat it up as 'as good as done' and the club says absolutely nothing. What does waiting achieve? Warriors announced Townsend yesterday after it only coming out that they were interested pretty much days ago. Reports they wanted DWZ, a week later they had him but we've had silence from the Bulldogs for over 2 months now..

Because the news might derail our season and hurt our chances of becoming premiers this year....
 

Howie B

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Agreed - don't know why the club has to wait to announce everything if/when people sign. The media beat it up as 'as good as done' and the club says absolutely nothing. What does waiting achieve? Warriors announced Townsend yesterday after it only coming out that they were interested pretty much days ago. Reports they wanted DWZ, a week later they had him but we've had silence from the Bulldogs for over 2 months now..
Understand what you are saying mate but you cant compare those 2 signings because they are mid year signings. Of course they have to announce them straight away. It would be a bit embarrassing if they ran out with their new club before the announcement was made lol.

I am frustrated too but its important the club doesnt make rash decisions either. Alot of player movement is done in the off season these days and it involves players under contract. Most decent players off contract have already been signed by now.

Its a tough one for struggling clubs. Do you :

a) Sign a player who is off contract that is sort of what you are looking for ; or
b) Wait until the off season to sign someone who is a perfect fit but by waiting you run the risk of missing out altogether

Note that this doesnt apply to SJ. By all reports he should be announced soon. I am more referring to the other 6 or 7 players we need
 

Philmus

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Understand what you are saying mate but you cant compare those 2 signings because they are mid year signings. Of course they have to announce them straight away. It would be a bit embarrassing if they ran out with their new club before the announcement was made lol.

I am frustrated too but its important the club doesnt make rash decisions either. Alot of player movement is done in the off season these days and it involves players under contract. Most decent players off contract have already been signed by now.

Its a tough one for struggling clubs. Do you :

a) Sign a player who is off contract that is sort of what you are looking for ; or
b) Wait until the off season to sign someone who is a perfect fit but by waiting you run the risk of missing out altogether

Note that this doesnt apply to SJ. By all reports he should be announced soon. I am more referring to the other 6 or 7 players we need
Get where you're coming from too, i agree with players on contract and the need to wait until November for those sorts of signings, but the SJ one for example hes off contract and been told to look around. By all accounts we've got him, what is the club waiting for?
 

bert

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Get where you're coming from too, i agree with players on contract and the need to wait until November for those sorts of signings, but the SJ one for example hes off contract and been told to look around. By all accounts we've got him, what is the club waiting for?
The cooling off period. They’ve learnt a lesson from Castle when she gobbed off about Fifita
 

CBDoggies

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We are being respectful as to not distract and damage sharks title campaign or disrupt their premiership window.
Fuck respect. Not having a go at you but our club has been walked over but a lot of other clubs regarding signings etc… it’s time we get back the us vs them mentality. Over this goody goody behaviour our club have become.
 

TwinTurbo

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And you still say Des/Dib/Castle thought, or at least knew they had to allow the possibility, and contingency plan, that they would have to dump up to 10 x 600k- 800k players in 2017-2018 bc over the sc by 3 million?

Also you can't avoid paying the player his inflated amt in the 3rd year. Even Des would realise this along with the fact the players were not exactly at the beginning of theur careers and the chance of them holding their form and being sort by other teams would wane with every passing year.

2017 Board was Dib Board. That includes Turvey. He knew about these dicey back ended structured contracts? And in your scenario its really "gross" mismanagement and mishandling of the roster and sc taking a very cavalier approach on a wing and a prayer that players would move on when their big payday was still outstanding.

I dont give Des enough negotiation skills to think he could get that amount of players, and their agents, to back end contracts so heavily in their last year and therefore pay more tax (for a start).

And who the hell club would buy these players at 800k for Eastwood etc. How could it be signed off on by that footy board?

Even the barest of investigation by one of those Board members, into the figures, would have exposed it?

I dont know but I guess what I can accept is that it was undoubtedly done but not to the the same degree, or 3 million, that we have been lead to believe.

As I said, not looking for an argument with anybody or unwillinging to accept facts and figures but so far I cant see sufficient necessity or explanation for 4 years to get sc back under control and all but ruin the club in the process.

Anyway I'll leave it. I probably wouldn't believe anybody until I saw a thorough forensic finanical investigation into the whole saga going back the past 2 Boards :grinning:
It’s a good summary by Twin Turbo but I guess what the majority of Bulldogs fans are bamboozled by is why pay them so much in the first place? I get the reference and understand the numbers but if we were to simplify things and take away the back ended contract and paid everyone per annum I still don’t think our roster was even top eight, if so certainty not top four.

I am if the belief that Hasler over achieved with the squad he had during his tenure and our star player (Ben Barba) would of been on peanuts. Our other most influential players Ennis/Graham surely could not have taken more than 600k per season.

Then we go into the predicted line up of season 2018 even if we didn’t move any players on (Mbye, Klemmer, Woods) it was still a trash team on paper.

So again the concern, disbelief and pain arise from to exactly why we were over paying ok players in the first place? As stated before we didn’t have ONE Australian spine player (haven’t in a long time) maybe only Klemmer the only Australian player and then a wide variety of OK first grade players made to look better by Hasler having them play as a team.

Using this year as an example (let’s draw comparisons to back then as I just can’t remember the other fifteen clubs player’s at the moment)

We had nothing like Storm, Roosters, Souths, Manly, Eels or even the Knights in terms of a Star studded line up. To me we kinda looked as strong as this year’s Dragons, if that- but Hasler had us playing a style of footy that could win us more games than we loss (as boring as it was)

I guess to summarise, most think we should of been able to afford a STRONGER roster that was cap complaint. Not an average team that was using loop holes and back ended contracts to play together.
With back ended contracts it is very easy to critique the last year and ask "why did we pay so much"? We could just as easily look at the first year and say "wow, he was a bargain at that cost". We need to look at the whole contract duration and then average it out to judge whether a player was worth it or not. Personally I believe, over his contract period, to use my previous example, Eastwood was well and truly worth his average, but the back end value was ridiculous.

I just don't accept the claim that the teams from 2012 to 2016 inclusive were any less than quality, after all we made the Finals every year and the Grand Final twice. The difficulties started when too many of of those player were allowed to come to their back ended years all at once, forcing us to offload decent players, often paying other clubs to take them and recruit cheapies to stay under the Cap and have 30 players. We paid the price in 2017, when Hasler was still here, and 2018 for the back ended contract "sins" of 2012 to 2016. To stay under the Cap we let loose some good players, paid other clubs to take some players, didn't renew contracts that we should have renewed and signed cheapies to fill the 30 roster. Look at some of the players we lost between 2015 and 2017, Pritchard, Lafai, Thompson, Hodkinson, Rona, Finucane, SPerrett, Browne etc. Then look at the list of the players that we gained in the same time frame, Abbey, Kennar, Garvey, Mbye, Fine, Philips, Lee, Stanley etc.

Hindsight is marvelous, but we have to remember that multiple other teams had players with back ended contracts and at least one of them, Melbourne, had won premierships. It was easy to mount an argument to the Board that "they are doing it and winning, so we need to do it to keep up". Hasler had the runs on the Board, everyone knew that other teams were doing it and it wasn't against any NRL rules at the time.

Nothing in the above should be read as me saying that it was the right thing to do or that it was smart, it's what happened.

Always a Bulldog
 

NPC83

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Fuck respect. Not having a go at you but our club has been walked over but a lot of other clubs regarding signings etc… it’s time we get back the us vs them mentality. Over this goody goody behaviour our club have become.
Mate agree with you but I was being sarcastic.. sharks premiership window closed 3 years ago and I think they are a lock for bottom 4. But letting Townsend go I’d say long odds to get SJ early.
 
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