For much of its history rugby league has been more of a game of passion than a real career option for a lot of its players. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that many players could afford to be full-time professionals and not have a day job.
Now, with the landmark new agreement, courtesy of strong negotiating by the RLPA, the salary cap has gone up by over $2 million in one single year, from $9.6 million to $12.1 million per team.
Many teams splurged on new talent, upgraded beloved players to long-term deals and began scouring the market for new marquee signings thanks to this newfound abundance of cap space.
In addition to this, many players had held off on long-term deals before this year due to the knowledge that a new agreement would be reached and they could get more for their services, so there was a bevy of potential options all waiting to be snapped up by the highest bidder.
As a result, teams that had been in the cellar for a long time suddenly had cap space to lure talent to their clubs, with the Tigers and the Bulldogs the most noticeable beneficiaries. Api Koroisau, Isaiah Papali’i, Charlie Staines, David Klemmer, John Bateman, Viliame Kikau and Reed Mahoney are all top-tier talent in their respective roles, and all made a move to just those two clubs in one off-season.
In slower years gone by, those names alone might have been the entire transfer list for the whole NRL!
While the jury is still out on whether those teams can assemble a competitive squad out of their new players and those that they already had, the benefit of the new cap space is that at least they could now try to improve their position. The question that this author has is then simple: where the hell is the money on the park for the St George Illawarra Dragons?
The Dragons’ new NRL signings are composed of Zane Musgrove, Jacob Liddle, Ben Murdoch-Masila and Paul Turner. Unless those four are getting contracts close to $625,000 each, one must wonder where the Dragons’ hoard of gold is being spent. None are terrible to have in your squad, but let’s just say a more savvy recruitment office may have been able to get all four for $625,000, let alone one.
The issue is even more glaring when you look at some of the names that have left the Dragons: Tariq Sims, Andrew McCollough, Josh McGuire, Jackson Ford and a handful of fringe first graders. While none of those are A-listers anymore, one would be hard-pressed to argue that the value of their previous contracts is lower than what the Dragons paid for their imports.
The issue isn’t even that St George let Tariq Sims and Jackson Ford go (who has now been immense in two appearances for the Warriors) only to sign a sub-par replacement in Murdoch-Masila. No, the issue is simple: where is the money on the field?
In an ordinary year, you could maybe say the Dragons had to squeeze some talent off their roster to pay for upgrades on talent that are maturing and expect raises like Zac Lomax and Blake Lawrie, but that doesn’t make sense when you have a spare $2.5 million on the cap.
(Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)
The one contract that most people know of when it comes to the Dragons is Ben Hunt’s, which has been discussed ad nauseam since 2017, but that has been factored into the Dragons’ cap for half a dozen years now. Who else is on the squad demanding contracts above $500,000? Perhaps more importantly, who is signing them to those contracts if they are getting them?
It is unusual that a team gets a sudden burst of free money to go out and spend, as a major increase to the salary cap (like what was just experienced by the NRL) are rare. Some took full advantage, others retained and upgraded bonafide stars already in their locker room, while the Dragons seemed to twiddle their thumbs and do nothing at all.
This seems to be, at least in part, due to the fact that Anthony Griffin has no more ex-Broncos players to sign anymore, since those from his tenure are all now retired.
The one silver lining for Dragons fans is this: the Dragons have just four players signed on for deals past 2024: Ben Hunt, Zac Lomax, Blake Lawrie and Jayden Sullivan. With their coach on notice that he could be replaced sooner rather than later, and perhaps the biggest hoard of gold when it comes to cap space in the NRL, a new coach has the ability to come in and completely recreate the team within two seasons.
Or, knowing the Dragons, maybe that money will be enough to coax Sam Thaiday, Wendell Sailor and Kevin Walters out of retirement, and Hook can keep coaching his old Bronco mates for another few years.
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