Prime is peak production not just production.

Also with contract negotiations player’s deals are often structured to pay a players beyond a decent level of production please look at such leagues as the NFL, the NBA, the AFL, the NRL, the NHL, the MLB and the EPL amongst others to find such precedents. The reasoning behind this is varied and can include, amongst others, management stupidity, fast deterioration in a player, the willingness to provide a longer contract to offset a higher per annum contract etc

But at the end of the day a player is in his prime is still a wildly different statement to saying he is a player that can still produce. I can’t believe you are even trying to suggest they are the same thing as a back peddle from being clearly wrong.

“he is only 29[sic], hardly over the hill. he should be in his prime[sic]. all he can show for it is a big set of pistols!” Fact is he has a lot more to show for his career than some biceps.

A sportsman’s career is not only as good “as good as his last game” whilst a great meaningless cliché if this were true then why are things such as career stats would never be kept or mentioned. By your reasoning Michael Jordan couldn’t play basketball and neither Kieran Perkins nor Grant Hackett were really Olympic gold medallists in the 1500.

With regards to the relevance of his family if you looked at the rest of the statement you would understand the relevance as I provided context in the portion you elected not to quote. There is also the marginal utility argument for money when just throwing out figures but I fear that may be to complex a concept for this.

With your last point – you show yet again this is an axe to grind for you. And that’s fine but could you grind it with just a little bit of accuracy or supported points, rather than wild misstatements, untruths and ill founded points.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby_union/article6901882.ece

It appears he is contracted to Leicester until end of May 2010 and he wants to play for Fiji in RWC2011, no mention of returning to the NRL. There is also an interview on the BBC website.

Got to laugh at Ben’s generalised comment about the “all league players being incoherent and immature”.Wouldn’t be a ru buff?
Maybe he should have listened to the words,when El Masri gave his farewell speech to the 41,000 crowd.
As Jack Gibson once noted,keep it simple.You don’t need a committee meeting or a Churchillian type speech to say something that can be said in a few words.
NB.Clubs such as Parramatta and the Bulldogs have been inundated with potential sponsors.Such has been the impact of the new breed of administrators,repsonsibilty of their players and the way they play the game.

Lefty – it was pretty clear that Lote got a pretty hefty payout. I’d wager it was at least a few hundred thousand (allthough certainly not as high as some of the figures in the media.

I suspect he wants to be home with the family. The wife and kids won’t want to move, and he might not be trusted to be overseas on his own without them.

Trying telling the family they’re worth less than an extra $200-600K a year. You’ll take your $400K, get your pocket pissed in for coming back to league, and be happy. And still be looking at a couple of years in Japan when he retires from the NRL I’d tip ….

More like a couple of hundred thousand, being what the ARU would have spent to fight the court case anyway.

he had the chance to fill us all in on what he had done, but, despite his being a twitter addict, not a dicky bird, excuse the pun, about what he got up to. Remember that the ARU, from the outset, said that they would respect his privacy, but that they had no problem in his coming clean. Nada!!!!

ARU signed him until 32. why would they do that unless they thought he would be producing at 32.

” he was never a ball player or general play kicker” exactly, but every player has to develop more skills and both ball player or general play kicker are essential to a back three in rugby!!!

check hsi physique: he is much bigger and on numerous occasions, when put into the clear, would not back his speed.

jerseys, jumpers and cardi’s: yet but sportsmen are only as good as their last game and he did not earn any cardi’s in 2009. He was the 5th winger behind Turner, Mitchell, Hynes and Ioane and all of the others can play at least one other position well.

“He’s also earnt more right now than his parents did over the course of their life ” is relevant because???? I dont get it. It is about tuqiri not his mummy and pappy.

Tight leash: Do you know why he was dismissed? I wont say it here, but …………..He tried to get an overseas contract but failed…………

He threw away, by his own ridiculous behaviour, a $1m contract on easy street, let me say it again, a $1m, for a $400k contract in the NRL grind and couldnt get a contract in either Euro or Japan.

No sign that, despite all the twitter, no apology, not acceptance of his part in his own demise. this is the most worrying sign, and I say that because, as a human being, he is still on the downward path. I get no satisfaction from that, no matter who it is.

did he apology for traumatising SNK or PH or his contribution to derailing the Tahs 2007 season due to his prelonged negotiations? NOPE

I was not playing any card.

League is great and I am glad it is back however the NRL could do a little more work with its players and it would have more cash to play with as sponsors would see the players are useful to their respective organisations.

I loved Dell in Union however he goes better in league and given the lack of foresight of the NRL and the churlish nature of the game, be it the Footy Show and all the silly antics, Dell is one of the few respectable types to promote the sport.

I cringe about the lack of maturity and respect of NRL players as much as I cringe about the lack of hardness of Wallabies in confronting ABs and Springboks. We are better than this on all counts.

Fact he’s 30.

Fact neither 30 nor 29 is the “prime” of a wingers career. (Saying he “should have” learnt a new position is all well and good but he was never a ball player or general play kicker.)

I would of thought it was pretty much basic common sense that people don’t maintain the same speed, agility and acceleration as they move from early 20s towards 30 clearly this isn’t that common given you believe 30 to be the prime of his career.

Look at the origin selections over the past 10 years – so 120 wing positions up for grabs (please note I used just year of birth it is possible that ages are a year younger)

How often has a player 30 years or older been selected at wing – 7 or 5.8%
How often was that the players final series – 7
80% of the selections have been of wingers 27 and under. The average age is 24.4 years old.

So much for 30 being his prime…

Fact: he has more to show for it than some guns, what he has to show for it other than some guns is a rather bland wardrobe with 5 kangaroo jerseys, 6 Maroon jumpers and handy 60+ golden wallabies cardies.

Fact: He’s also earnt more right now than his parents did over the course of their life so I don’t think his life is falling apart over the potential 600k earnings drop though it will result in some revision of future plans.

Fact. You don’t know if he’s on a tight leash or not. It is purely speculation because he is making a choice that a many other people with time demanding jobs make as they get to 30 – lets take a position that gives me more family time. This is hardly ground breaking or some reason to be embarrassed.

Those facts to me don’t add up to someone who should be embarrassed by their career . But they do add up to a very poorly researched piece.

There are things that are more important in life than money LeftArmSpinner. I hope for your sake you realise this one day.

The Tigers will get the “Dell” factor from Tiquri from marketing and will fix him up in “3rd party deals”. If the NRL had any brains, however with David “sorry for that indescretion” Gallop (resembles Kevin Rudd in that way, full of apologies, total inaction) it will never happen, they would educate their players to be decent ambassadors at the top level and maybe the bucks would roll in, like in Union.

He has done pretty well for himself, the fact at one stage the ARU was giving a winger 1 million dollars a season say more about the ARU than anyone else.