Merrin is a quality player, no doubt about it - however he is overweight for a professional athlete, he's too slow for second row, too small for prop and can't play 80 minutes.
For the amount of money he was on, a big part of that was his leadership and experience. Purely as a player, I think he was overpaid. Also his contract was way too long and his value-for-money could well have looked even worse three years down the line.
He is less effective when he's not in a pack of specialist players to cover the gaps he has.
He's a good enough bloke but I'm not unhappy he's going. There have been rumours of this not being right for him even from before he joined us.
Not really sure why some seem so upset by this? Our back row without him looks pretty solid anyway, and it won't be too long before we see the likes of Walters and hopefully Edwards breaking through too.
NRL clubs can afford to carry players like Merrin but SL clubs can't. This way is best for all parties IMO.
