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http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,10007629-23214,00.html
Cap runneth over
Analysis by Paul Kent
July 1, 2004
THE Sydney Roosters have Brad Fittler retiring, Justin Hodges ready to walk and have told Luke Ricketson that if he wants to stay next season he has to take a pay cut.
Yet when they sign Brett Firman everybody says, 'How can they afford that?'
Weekend radio has been filled with it, the lonely and the broken hearted all wondering what is happening to the Dragons while directing a green eye towards the Roosters.
Then when rumours started on Tuesday about the Roosters being investigated for salary cap rorts the punters, figuring where there's smoke there's a smoke machine, tore hamstrings to get down to the TAB to back the Roosters for the wooden spoon.
It proves one thing. If there is anything the Aussie punter likes it is the inside tip, even when the rumours are totally unfounded.
There are some who believe the salary cap is the most evil invention since daytime television while others believe it is the great saviour of the game.
Where you stand on it depends mostly on who you support and how capable they are of spending up.
But as today rolls around and the June 30 deadline is over, the art of the deal has again caused interest as many wonder just how the Roosters can manage it and the Dragons seemingly can't.
Roosters chief executive Brian Canavan sympathises with the Dragons, saying they "wouldn't have predicted the players they have produced".
The Dragons also realise they are victims of their own success. Some at the club have developed so quickly and so brilliantly they have jammed up the salary cap.
"They have accelerated in their growth," chief executive Peter Doust says of his players. "They have all come forward much quicker than we would have anticipated."
For instance, Brent Kite started this season as a bench player but through injury and circumstance began to start for the Dragons, turning that it into a State of Origin berth.
Tired of not having had a halfback for the past 10 years, two years ago the club invested heavily in four juniors, hoping one would break through.
Dean Byrne was signed by Souths, then the Dragons had to let Firman go after deciding that, of the other two that emerged, they would prefer to sign Mathew Head.
"You can't afford to have a seven and six, as we have, who are market value in first grade and then have another two in reserve grade," Doust says.
"Whereas Freddy is going over there, so they needed to add another one to their roster."
A good example is Ben Hornby, this season on what is basically considered a third-bracket contract.
Hornby played Origin this year, a confirmation of his talent, and is negotiating a contract that will be -- and needs to be -- substantially upgraded.
Now the club is dealing with players coming ahead of their time.
After getting into trouble several years ago the Dragons are slowly shifting to a line that is basically in step with how other clubs structure payments.
As an exercise, NRL salary cap auditor Ian Schubert - the only man who knows the intimate finances of every club - places a club's players on a graph to see how they are structuring their payments.
The curve would slowly rise as it moved along until, towards the end, it would rise sharply - like a ski jump - as it got to each club's more expensive, but fewer, players.
The Dragons' ski jump was more severe than other clubs - meaning more players on top end money, less shared around.
In recent years that has changed, though, as it has for most other clubs as they shifted towards a more even spread of talent.
But the talent at the club hasn't helped.
"We've turned young players into first-graders very quickly, and first- graders into rep players very quickly," Doust said.
It caught the Dragons unprepared.
"Then you have got the player in the middle that you see as being part of your first-grade squad that then cracks it again and, well, you just can't keep them all," he says.
Weepy types complain that the Roosters are signing everybody while losing nobody, but consider this: Over the past three seasons the Roosters have lost Bryan Fletcher, Brett Mullins, Mark Minichiello, Simon Bonetti, Dallas Hood, David Kidwell, Andrew Lomu, Todd Payten, Matt Sing and Dean Widders.
Payten came and went after a season, with most of his contract subsidised by Canberra.
Others to arrive at Bondi have been Brett Finch, Hodges, Chris Walker (on a reduced contract after walking out on Souths), Jason Cayless (as a reserve-grader from Parramatta) and Ned Catic.
The point is not the Roosters signing everybody but more that managers linking their players to the Roosters on the back of the Roosters' reputation as a wealthy club, trying to drive up their clients' prices.
But Dragons fans need not fret.
Doust looks at the Roosters' success and sees how players are willing to stay for less to remain successful.
"It places a different set of values into the equation to assess," he says.
He plans to take the Dragons right there.
:lol:
