It’s all dollars and sense for the Roosters

 
The Crowd Roar Pro

By Mushi, 15 Jul 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

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I find myself constantly looking for reasons why the Roosters are so pedestrian. Watching the game they look lost and unmotivated for stretches, and looking at their stats, it gets even worse.

Just about every metric of the forward pack is below average, from metres gained, to defensive work rate and time on the pitch.

Our back three don’t help out, with well below average kick returning and our centre’s don’t break tackles and our halves assist relatively few line breaks and tries.

But one thing fills me with both hope and fear: we have potentially one third of our salary cap available after this year with Fitzgibbon, O’Meley, Minichello, and potentially, Mason departing.

Now this isn’t a plea for sympathy regarding how little bang we got for almost 1.5 million bucks. This mess is almost entirely of the Roosters own making.

See, like many NRL clubs, the Roosters pay is based on how a player used to play, not how they are likely to play over the life of the contact.

This is typically a problem with the subjective player analysis that rules the roost in the NRL. It is tough to weed out memories from years ago when assessing how good a player is going to be in the near future.

Minichello, for instance, received a contract fit for the best player at his position. But the thing was, whilst he had been one of, if not the best player in his position for a number of years, he had also suffered an injury that has a habit of recurring.

Even injury free, he would be 29 by the end of his contact, well beyond the best years for a speed and acceleration reliant position.

O’Meley, who we paid as an elite prop, came to the Roosters after playing almost 200 games since he was 18 in the most physical position in the world’s most physical league.

Look at his numbers and it is clear that he had been in decline for about three years prior and was no longer an elite prop, merely a good first grader.

So what led the Roosters to believe that a player with his body shape was going to somehow return to his 23 year-old production as he got older?

Fitzgibbon, despite being the oldest of the four, was perhaps the most defensible signing.

He played a position which typically holds up better over time and fulfilled a leadership role that goes beyond his direct contribution. However, holding up better is different to staying the same.

Plus, signs of a subtle decline had already set in. So the Roosters predictably paid him in line with his current production.

Mason was the enigma.

Coming off an interrupted year for the Bulldogs, where his antics contributed to an acrimonious split, he had perhaps his most dominant year when he was on the field.

But if there was any elite player from the past ten years you felt may not have the emotional maturity or work ethic to maintain their performance into his late 20s early 30s, wouldn’t it be Mason?

At a discount price tag his talent would have been worth it. But the Roosters paid purely on production and didn’t factor in the downside risks.

I think these four contractual millstones around the Roosters neck have weighed more heavily than letting Jamie Soward go.

So with this newly available war chest, I hope this time round we continue to learn from our mistakes and pay for the improving future performance of younger players, rather than pay for the glory days of past heroes entering their decline.

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