Burgler
Kennel Participant
- Joined
- May 1, 2017
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THROWBACK | The Canterbury Four
Eels fans from the 1990s will remember two regularly used headlines: ‘The Canterbury Four’ and the ‘$9 million flops’. They represent the different ends of the spectrum of what is not just the major line in the sand for the Parramatta Eels that ended a decade of despair that followed the club’s...
www.parraeels.com.au
As a 34 year old fan of the dogs, I vaguely remember the 'canterbury four' leaving for Parramatta. I started following the dogs in 95 as they were a successful team at the time and like any young kid I jumped on the bandwagon.
When Pay, Smith, Dymock and McCraken left I never truly understood why and despised those players for leaving together like they did. Even when Dymock and Pay were in coaching for us I always thought to myself why would the club welcome them back.
What I didn't realise is that it was due to the super league war. We obviously signed with super league etc, the four stayed loyal to the ARL and left the dogs to sign with Parramatta.
The interesting part is that the ARL scrapped the salary cap during the war which allowed Parramatta to spend 7mil that the leagues club had in reserve funds on players. Each of the four signed contracts approx 400-500k which was huge money at that time. The club cap was approx 1.8mil and they spent 1.6 roughly on 4 players.
Now with a bit of perspective I understand why they left. I think about the situation differently, only 25 years later haha.
Thought it was worth posting for the dogs tragics like myself, even for some of the younger fans who didn't know much about the effects of super league on today's game.
It was an interview with Jason Hetherington on Andy Raymond's podcast that got me researching about what happened at the time, also worth listening to. Hetherington was a great player and can tell a yarn.