Recruitment, rumours and links

Re: Recruitment, rumours and links : Sun Jan 19, 2025 6:12 pm

Barbed Wire wrote:

We literally outbid them on both. And the Nicholson one is a good example actually, if we take Bryne and Hill has a clear path in the first team in the same way Nsemba has in the absence of Nicholson, they win. They get more, for less. And their rival pay more, for less. And as much as I like Nicholson, Nsemba was more effective last year.

In a salary cap sport (for those in the mix, although I think the salary cap deserves its own discussion), you need to get return on the money you pay, we need to find something to close the gap and overpaying for players isn’t the way.

I’m not being negative about it, I just think we need to get to the bottom of why he is available. If we’re rolling together the Crowther and Wood money and think Byrne will do the job of both, great. Completely understand that. But if we’re using 70-80% or more of Vaughan money on Byrne, there’s not enough money remaining to add enough to see that our pack doesn’t regress. Because you know, you just KNOW that Wigan have another Byrne, and another Hill and a Smithies, a Partington etc etc etc waiting in the wings being paid peanuts to do the same or better job. It’s up to us to make him deliver on the investment, or the gap opens wider. Not just that, but it blocks the path of Thomas, Green, Whitehead… Prudent recruitment would be to wait until May time and challenge those kids to kick the door down and make the Byrne deal seem unnecessary, but the November 1st negotiation date makes that difficult, as you’d be beaten to the signature.

He’s worth more to us than to them. That is how the market works.