Raiders sign young NRL star Tedesco

Also if you were to quantify the development hours required to be an NRL player I’m sure a larger percentage are put in by government funded and volunteer “developers” than those funded by the club. But putting that to one side – Teams with a junior pipeline already have a massive advantage given the access to a cheaper player pool and the general need for a premium for recruitment over retention. In a salary cap environment if the tigers are openly saying hey Canberra are paying more than we are willing to then Canberra, in the eye of the tigers (no pun intended) are the losers as they believe he isn’t worth that % of their restricted resources. And it certainly appeared that they had an implied moral option to match – an incredibly powerful and valuable option that often gets “granted” for the current club. There are only three ways that someone can steal your players and field a better team: 1. Management screwed up your evaluation of them and didn’t put a high enough value on the right players – in your control 2. Management have overpaid other players so no longer have the money to keep your prized juniors –in your control 3. You have developed such an unpalatable situation for the guy that he would rather take less money elsewhere – in your control There is a reason that other leagues have drafts

“Nobody said they shouldn’t be allowed to earn as much as they can – quite the opposite.” Well some guy with your moniker said “there would be less “upward pressure” on player salaries” so not sure what happened there?

If you bring in a real transfer system it will suit club develop players at all levels. The most sucessful clubs of today in general pick up the best value players at U20 level make them champions. Rugby League is offically a money ball game and every player in every position is a value proposition. Bottom line this deal for the raiders could not be worse. They had a good replacement in Reece on the books. Tedesco is injury prone and if this does not turn around it will be the dud buy. Auckland got the dud buy of the year in their fullback. Hopefully Tedesco can stay on the paddock.

Mmmm good luck with this prediction.

Ray Brown and James Tedesco have a lot in common....

Both?

93kg in Gold is just over $4 million dollars, so if you are right the Raiders got him at half price.

Didn't even read it

Tedescos agent has done well here. He's delivered him a CEO level salary despite a poor injury run (like 25 games in 3 years?) to a club that already had not one, but two good fullbacks. Granted ones still going through development but Reece Robinson should feel gutted by this.

Nobody said they shouldn't be allowed to earn as much as they can - quite the opposite. It's just that the club that develops them should have the best chance of being the one to offer them the best salary via cap concessions. I also absolutely refute the idea that clubs "don't develop players". Some clubs spend a hell of a lot doing it. What I am proposing would mean that all clubs are forced to spend more money developing juniors, which leads to a strengthening of the player pool. How is that a bad idea?

Alex, well said. NRL fans need to drop the notion that they "develop" juniors. The players develop themselves! And they are entitled to earn as much as they can from their brief careers. Look at Jaral Yeoyea...broke his leg and never returned. he wont be earning NRL bucks again.

I disagree. Cooper Cronk, Israel Folau, Billy Slater, Cameron Smith and Greg Inlis (to name a few) all made their NRL debut at Melbourne. The reason that the Storm have been so successful is that they have identified juniors early on and them brought them through. Sure, they have complemented these players with buys from the market from time to time, but the type of player that they have generally bought have been journeymen who are often discarded from their club contracts. To be clear, I'm not advocating that once you have a junior gow up in your district he's yours for life. What I am saying is that there needs to be reward for developing a player. There is a big difference. If, for example, the Storm (or any other club) picks up a junior player and them puts that player through their development system, then they would get the same benefit. So the idea is not to hoard players just because you have a large junior district, it is to be able to develop players to NRL level, and then receive salary cap concessions from there. Obviously the cut off age can be discussed, perhaps it could be once they hit NRL, or perhaps you could have a sliding scale of concessions for however long you had them before they hit NRL (that is open for discussion), but the idea is that once a player hit NRL level, the developing club get the best shot at retaining that talent via salary cap concessions. This system would have assisted Melbourne as much as any other club.

When you say another club, you mean the Roosters, surely.

Raiders again have to pay overs to attract quality players. Tedesco is a great talent but he hasn't proven he can play a full season. I guess you can argue he owed the Tigers some loyalty after they stuck by him for 2 lost seasons. Good luck to the young guy but the Raiders have definitely rolled the dice. Thought he would go to the Chooks if he didn't stay at the Tigers.

The biggest problem with your ideas are that it'd kill any attempts to expand the NRL to new locations; the Storm for instance basically had to poach for the last 15 years because Victoria had almost no juniors (League not being big south-west of the Barassi line), though juniors from the VRL are starting to come through now in greater numbers it takes quite a long time to get a junior system operating effectively.

Bah! As if ud goto Canberra there future isn't looking bright

Did you have any comments on it?

Wow. One above was long!!! He shouldn't have gone. But great money. But he owed Wests for sticking by him during two knee blow outs, the current injury. Poor form by James. He could've even made money sticking with tigers and becoming a superstar working with and running off brooks. Canberra is a black hole

As a Wests Tigers supporter, I don't begrudge his move to the Canberra Raiders or the Raiders themselves. But I am extremely disappointed and believe that the system needs to change. Where is the incentive for clubs to develop players, only to have them poached? If the poaching of Canberra's team by various NRL clubs hadn't been so aggressive, then Canberra wouldn't themselves be forced to poach James Tedesco. The problem is that there are certain NRL clubs who aren't pulling their weight from a junior development perspective, and this has knock on effects into the rest of the NRL. Whilst I appreciate that some clubs have much larger junior districts, and therefore a much larger player pool to draw upon, it should be incumbent upon those clubs with smaller junior catchments to scout young players and draw them into their own development systems. If a cut-off of, say, sixteen years of age were introduced where you could get a salary cap discount for developing a player it would make the system a whole lot fairer for those clubs who spend large amounts of resources developing players, and act as an incentive for those currently not doing their share. Nobody would begrudge a talent scout from another district picking up young players and giving them an opportunity at development through to the NRL. Nor is anyone suggesting that you must play the rest of your life at the club that represents the district where you played your junior footy. But there has to be some sort of protection for clubs that take the time to develop players. Losing players can have huge impacts on a club. Who doesn't think that the Tigers might now not only lose James Tedesco, but potentially also a lucrative sponsor who was interested in James and could see the potential of the team with him in itl? Who doesn't think that if the Tigers had been able to offer James Tedesco a contract competitive with Canberra's offer that he'd probably preferred to stay at the club? Again, I don't blame James at all, the reported difference of between two and three hundred thousand a season is too much for any reasonable person to pass up, particularly for someone who may well be at the peak of his life's earning potential. As I said, I don't begrudge Canberra, they have suffered probably more than anyone by losing players to other clubs. A system of salary cap concessions for developed players, and loadings for poached players would seem like the simplest solution. Implementing such a system would force clubs that currently do very little to invest in junior development to divert funds towards bringing young players through, thereby increasing opportunities for young players and increasing the pool of NRL class players. I fail to see how that wouldn't be a beneficial outcome to the game in general. Furthermore, clubs would have more stability within their playing group, there would be less "upward pressure" on player salaries, and clubs could spend more money on development and less on poaching or defending their roster from poachers. Sponsors could get with a club knowing that highly bankable star is probably around for the long haul. Again, that would be a better outcome for everyone in the game.

Our beloved James, there he goes chasing big money in a boring club with the worst coach in the comp. Good luck James, we'll miss you!