News We won't make a rash call': Bulldogs boss opens up about Pay's future

[Real1]

Storm/RedZed deal was pre C-19. It was announced on 1 March, before the season started and then stopped. Our deal with Rashays was intended to be announced as a surprise for the team to run out on on 12 March and was blown by the breaking of the Port Mac story on 10 March. So I don’t agree Andrew Hill hasn’t delivered any revenue, they convinced Rashays to part with $2m before those two players blew it. Hill was also appointed by Dib so that’s not a case of ‘appointing mates’.

Cap wise they are compliant for 2020 and Thompson coming early would’ve largely filled salaries of CHN/JO. Anything else is for 2021 and TBC - we know they have offers out, it’s a matter of now closing some of those.

You have a position to which you’re entitled but I don’t agree with much of it, nor do necessarily think the Anderson led board are flawless nor unaccountable - I just think there’s things that haven’t played out yet and have been disrupted by events beyond the clubs control since March and hence I’m giving them the time for those things to play out.

my point being if storm were able to comfortable secure a sponsor during covid, so should our board... we are a big club run by people with a small mentallity.... if all they had to show for it was Rashays, compared to when we had Kia, then that itself is a concern. i dont care about almosts... it didnt happen... dont blame the 2 players for not having a sponsor (our board hung CHN out to dry, all he did was swipe right on tinder and got lucky), we have had enough time to get a new sponsor since then, we are a big club run by the wrong people. we have been compliant for the cap since Nov 1 2019 to spend for 2021, and all weve done is miss out on players and sign thomspon is all we have got... again dont blame COVID, saints signed frizzel, tigers got grant, leluia (both) souths signed mitchell, eels signed Gillard. we are in July, our season is done and dusted... the board came out start of the year and said we need to start strong, we havent and now aunty lynne says we need to be patient????? and admires fucken parramatta....

i gave this board the opportunity to prove me wrong, and so far theyve done jack all.......

we were meant to be setting up a junior nursery at PNG and Fiji, well sharks got the fijian nursery and all we do is community service work at PNG, then Souths go ahead and sign Gebbie.. Chris anderson said we will scout all codes for talent, souths go ahead and pip Sualli from the wallabies grasp... 2021 was meant to be the year our cap would be in order and now lynne is asking for more time... please, enough is enough

 

[Real1]

I haven’t seen a lot of major business decisions being made in the last 3 months let alone discretionary spends.

Leagues club effectively does sponsor the footy club - does a logo on the jumper make much difference? Perception maybe. Regardless the leagues club had zero revenue for two months while they were closed so they also have decisions to make regarding that impact.

It’s not a public company, they are not required to share information and no doubt they are addressing any questions from potential recruits as part of the negotiation process.

I’m sure once they have a clearer picture of things post C-19 (perhaps even after this weeks footy/leagues club joint meeting) and discussion outcomes with potential recruits they will speak to members and publicly.

I get that many are emotional about things but reacting that way isn’t going to help anyone, the processes have to be worked through.

our backers shouldnt have to be our sponsor, we are a power house club and we need to start acting like one again.

 

[bradyk]

my point being if storm were able to comfortable secure a sponsor during covid, so should our board... we are a big club run by people with a small mentallity.... if all they had to show for it was Rashays, compared to when we had Kia, then that itself is a concern. i dont care about almosts... it didnt happen... dont blame the 2 players for not having a sponsor (our board hung CHN out to dry, all he did was swipe right on tinder and got lucky), we have had enough time to get a new sponsor since then, we are a big club run by the wrong people. we have been compliant for the cap since Nov 1 2019 to spend for 2021, and all weve done is miss out on players and sign thomspon is all we have got... again dont blame COVID, saints signed frizzel, tigers got grant, leluia (both) souths signed mitchell, eels signed Gillard. we are in July, our season is done and dusted... the board came out start of the year and said we need to start strong, we havent and now aunty lynne says we need to be patient????? and admires fucken parramatta....

i gave this board the opportunity to prove me wrong, and so far theyve done jack all.......

we were meant to be setting up a junior nursery at PNG and Fiji, well sharks got the fijian nursery and all we do is community service work at PNG, then Souths go ahead and sign Gebbie.. Chris anderson said we will scout all codes for talent, souths go ahead and pip Sualli from the wallabies grasp... 2021 was meant to be the year our cap would be in order and now lynne is asking for more time... please, enough is enough

It isn't even comparable. Storm are by themselves in Melbourne (NRL) and they're a successful team (top four) that have been at the top for ten years. You know what you're going to get. Good things will start happening when our salary cap is sorted and we get the roster. I will say we should of done more when November last year hit regarding recruitment and I was pretty loud about that at the time but at the end of the day we have to give them benefit of the doubt until we know our roster for 2021. All those players you've mentioned would rather sign elsewhere and up until now we've been penny pinching (unless it was the right players - DWZ, Thompson) and we know that has to change for 2021 as we have to spend 95% of our salary cap. I just think all of this is a bit premature and people are going to look silly if they do deliver recruitment wise (if they don't F them and they're ejected next election). I don't think Covid was that big of a deal for recruitment but it definitely was for sponsors (unless they weren't affected by covid). Are we really a powerhouse club anymore? The team definitely isn't. We have to rebuild that.

 

[Real1]

It isn't even comparable. Storm are by themselves in Melbourne (NRL) and they're a successful team (top four) that have been at the top for ten years. You know what you're going to get. Good things will start happening when our salary cap is sorted and we get the roster. I will say we should of done more when November last year hit regarding recruitment and I was pretty loud about that at the time but at the end of the day we have to give them until we know our roster for 2021. All those players you've mentioned would rather sign elsewhere and up until now we've been penny pinching and we know that has to change for 2021 as we have to spend 95% of our salary cap. I just this all of this is a bit premature and people are going to look silly if they do deliver recruitment wise. I don't think Covid was that big of a deal for recruitment but it definitely was for sponsors (unless they weren't affected). Are we really a powerhouse club anymore? Team team definitely isn't. We have to rebuild that.

we are one of the top 3-4 biggest clubs in Sydney, regardless of our position on the ladder we should not have had any trouble obtaining a new sponsor. name me a bigger club in Sydney? roosters, souths dogs and parra... the rest are struggling to make a profit..... right or wrong????? so when i say, we are a powerhouse club runnnn by the wrong people...... Eels went through this for yeeeeears..

All those players you've mentioned would rather sign elsewhere - THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT! LOL.... the fact that they want to sign elsewhere rather then being pipped by us is my prime point that this board is not good at player negotiation...

Are we really a powerhouse club anymore? fucken oath we are, we just arent being run correctly...

 

[bradyk]

we are one of the top 3-4 biggest clubs in Sydney, regardless of our position on the ladder we should not have had any trouble obtaining a new sponsor. name me a bigger club in Sydney? roosters, souths dogs and parra... the rest are struggling to make a profit..... right or wrong????? so when i say, we are a powerhouse club runnnn by the wrong people...... Eels went through this for yeeeeears..

All those players you've mentioned would rather sign elsewhere - THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT! LOL.... the fact that they want to sign elsewhere rather then being pipped by us is my prime point that this board is not good at player negotiation...

Are we really a powerhouse club anymore? fucken oath we are, we just arent being run correctly...

This is what the players look at (priority):
1. Money
2. Team/Roster
3. Coach
4. Club

Depending where a player is from location can be important too, but for the majority I don't think it's higher than 3.

Basically what I'm saying is our club/history isn't really relevant now unless a player is 50/50 in all the other areas.

 

[Suave]

"I admire Parramatta, Newcastle and Canberra. You look at trigger points for their turnarounds, and they are in their fourth or fifth years - we are two-and-a-half in"

Any benefit of the doubt I had has evaporated from that quote alone. 2 things have remained constant with this board - that it would take 18 months to turn it all around (i.e 2021) & they want to bring back the Bulldog DNA. Well Lynn not so subtley shifted the goal posts to 2023 and if you did have Bulldog DNA you wouldn't be using 3 clubs who have won a grand total of 0 premierships in the past 20 years as the benchmark for success.

I would've loved if she had said something like that in front of club members as opposed to some numpty journalist.

 

[bradyk]

"I admire Parramatta, Newcastle and Canberra. You look at trigger points for their turnarounds, and they are in their fourth or fifth years - we are two-and-a-half in"

Any benefit of the doubt I had has evaporated from that quote alone. 2 things have remained constant with this board - that it would take 18 months to turn it all around (i.e 2021) & they want to bring back the Bulldog DNA. Well Lynn not so subtley shifted the goal posts to 2023 and if you did have Bulldog DNA you wouldn't be using 3 clubs who have won a grand total of 0 premierships in the past 20 years as the benchmark for success.

I would've loved if she had said something like that in front of club members as opposed to some numpty journalist.

Recruitment was always starting in 2021. It's similar to the Knights 2018. What does rebuild mean? If we mean rebuilding to be a top 8/finals team we're there next year. If we mean rebuilding to winning a premiership that's ~2024. We obviously have to get recruitment and a lot of other things right in that time.

 

[TwinTurbo]

If Lyn, Dean and friends fucked a goat as the halftime entertainment during the grand final you'd find a way to twist it as a positive.

So you honestly believe that getting Thompson here 6 months early was not in any way positive?

Go Dogs

 

[DinkumDog]

our backers shouldnt have to be our sponsor, we are a power house club and we need to start acting like one again.

They have ALWAYS been a major backer. Any suggestion that the football club can or has ever stood alone financially is wrong. It's one of the things that made the club as a whole so strong - the Leagues club revenue and the amount it could subsidise the footy club.

 

[TwinTurbo]

They have ALWAYS been a major backer. Any suggestion that the football club can or has ever stood alone financially is wrong. It's one of the things that made the club as a whole so strong - the Leagues club revenue and the amount it could subsidise the footy club.

It is also why the great man and others set it up so the Football Club would always have a measure of control over the Leagues Club. He didn’t want us to fall into the same trap as other clubs, where the Leagues Club can work independently of their football team.

Go Dogs

 

[DinkumDog]

my point being if storm were able to comfortable secure a sponsor during covid, so should our board... we are a big club run by people with a small mentallity.... if all they had to show for it was Rashays, compared to when we had Kia, then that itself is a concern. i dont care about almosts... it didnt happen... dont blame the 2 players for not having a sponsor (our board hung CHN out to dry, all he did was swipe right on tinder and got lucky), we have had enough time to get a new sponsor since then, we are a big club run by the wrong people. we have been compliant for the cap since Nov 1 2019 to spend for 2021, and all weve done is miss out on players and sign thomspon is all we have got... again dont blame COVID, saints signed frizzel, tigers got grant, leluia (both) souths signed mitchell, eels signed Gillard. we are in July, our season is done and dusted... the board came out start of the year and said we need to start strong, we havent and now aunty lynne says we need to be patient????? and admires fucken parramatta....

i gave this board the opportunity to prove me wrong, and so far theyve done jack all.......

we were meant to be setting up a junior nursery at PNG and Fiji, well sharks got the fijian nursery and all we do is community service work at PNG, then Souths go ahead and sign Gebbie.. Chris anderson said we will scout all codes for talent, souths go ahead and pip Sualli from the wallabies grasp... 2021 was meant to be the year our cap would be in order and now lynne is asking for more time... please, enough is enough

But I just said the Storm deal was PRE Covid. Here's the proof: https://www.melbournestorm.com.au/news/2020/03/01/storm-announce-redzed-as-major-partner/
Major sponsor wise what did you expect when it was widely known our cap issues would have us fielding a second rate squad until 2021? So I don't buy that either. And you fail to mention that the current admin still managed to keep KIA onboard in some capacity, they didn't walk totally.
Don't blame the players for losing the sponsor? Who would you blame then??
You have ZERO evidence that CHN was hung out to dry. Speculation only.
'All we've done is miss out on players' - who? Api who backflipped? Ramien who was never serious because he wanted to go back to Cronulla? WHO?
Mate - I appreciate you've got a view and that's fine, I respect that - but you've still got to stick to the facts and much of the above doesn't.

 

[Spoonman84]

Recruitment was always starting in 2021. It's similar to the Knights 2018. What does rebuild mean? If we mean rebuilding to be a top 8/finals team we're there next year. If we mean rebuilding to winning a premiership that's ~2024. We obviously have to get recruitment and a lot of other things right in that time.

Recruitment wasn’t always starting in 2021 that’s absolutely rubbish. They haven’t had a full cap to work with but that never meant they couldn’t buy players. A lot of the signings have been questionable under current admin. Napa, CHN, DWZ and Stimson aren’t bargain basement buys and only DWZ has been successful when used on wing. Then you’d hope they could develop at least one bargain buy into something useful but that hasn’t happened either. If the club had managed to get 2-3 NRL standard players into the squad over the last few years it would make it so much more of easier task heading into 21.

 

[maroondog72]

Holbrook is 2 and 5
Pay is 1 and 6.
Hardly much better.
Can you imagine if Holbrook was 2 and 5 at the Dogs? TK would be up in arms saying ‘it was a mistake to sign Holbrook!’ .

The titans are improving week to week and Holbrook has managed to turn them around in seven games,pay has had 40 plus games and we are a worse side now than when he started. You can talk down Holbrook all you want but he’s already proven he’s a better coach than pay.

 

[TwinTurbo]

But I just said the Storm deal was PRE Covid. Here's the proof: https://www.melbournestorm.com.au/news/2020/03/01/storm-announce-redzed-as-major-partner/
Major sponsor wise what did you expect when it was widely known our cap issues would have us fielding a second rate squad until 2021? So I don't buy that either. And you fail to mention that the current admin still managed to keep KIA onboard in some capacity, they didn't walk totally.
Don't blame the players for losing the sponsor? Who would you blame then??
You have ZERO evidence that CHN was hung out to dry. Speculation only.
'All we've done is miss out on players' - who? Api who backflipped? Ramien who was never serious because he wanted to go back to Cronulla? WHO?
Mate - I appreciate you've got a view and that's fine, I respect that - but you've still got to stick to the facts and much of the above doesn't.

What did you expect, they make shit up, ignore any facts that contradict their biased beliefs, selectively quote whilst ignoring the context of what they are quoting, can't spell, exaggerate to an unbelievable level, can't add up and their grasp on the English language is laughable. I believe I could correct 10 posts an hour every single day and that's just fixing untruths and correcting errors of fact. Lucky I'm patient

Go Dogs

 

[B-Train]

What did you expect, they make shit up, ignore any facts that contradict their biased beliefs, selectively quote whilst ignoring the context of what they are quoting, can't spell, exaggerate to an unbelievable level, can't add up and their grasp on the English language is laughable. I believe I could correct 10 posts an hour every single day and that's just fixing untruths and correcting errors of fact. Lucky I'm patient

Go Dogs

Wow... The arrogance of the man.

 

[DinkumDog]

The titans are improving week to week and Holbrook has managed to turn them around in seven games,pay has had 40 plus games and we are a worse side now than when he started. You can talk down Holbrook all you want but he’s already proven he’s a better coach than pay.

I’m not talking him down at all and I wish him well - was simply pointing out that the Tits have not set anything on fire since he’s been there. Yes, the win over the Ponies last week was a good one but they’ve also had a couple of shockers so the jury is still out. I also pointed out that in the fickle world of TK if Holbrook was coaching us and we were 2 and 5 there’d already be rumblings that signing him was a mistake...

 

[GA45]

You can talk down Holbrook all you want but he’s already proven he’s a better coach than pay.

So has my 3 year old !!

 

[GA45]

Wow... The arrogance of the man.

Mr Google has it all

Go Dogs

 

[B-Train]

Mr Google has it all

Go Dogs

It must be nice to always be right and be so informed while trying to educate the peasant fans. He really is doing God's work.. Mother Teresa who?

 

[TwinTurbo]

Recruitment wasn’t always starting in 2021 that’s absolutely rubbish. They haven’t had a full cap to work with but that never meant they couldn’t buy players. A lot of the signings have been questionable under current admin. Napa, CHN, DWZ and Stimson aren’t bargain basement buys and only DWZ has been successful when used on wing. Then you’d hope they could develop at least one bargain buy into something useful but that hasn’t happened either. If the club had managed to get 2-3 NRL standard players into the squad over the last few years it would make it so much more of easier task heading into 21.

I think you miss some vital points that can't be simply glossed over, we have to have 30 players, we can't just go out and recruit 1 NRL quality player and then not recruit 2 others to pay for him. There is an NRL minimum contract that those players have to be on. Plus we have to spend 95% of the Cap every year, we can't save it up, not allowed under spend this year and then make it up next year. Front loaded and back ended contracts aren't allowed. As bonus for this year the NRL have decided we can't replace CHN or JO until their cases are heard.

The fact is the salary cap rules as a combination prevent any team from a fast recovery, look at how long Parramatta, Newcastle and Canbra took to get out of their holes. Look at the size of the hole the Donkeys find themselves in in Seibold's 2nd year in charge, they will take at least another year to see some light. We were always told it would take 3 years, many many times and yet some still think there's some miracle that will make it happen sooner. Well it won't, there's no rabbit or hat to pull it out of.

Go Dogs