When Bennett was at Saints he had full control. Doust said, I can sleep well at night because Wayne took care of everything with the footy club. I dare say the same has happened with Price, Mary and now Hook hence why the mess. The board not only is soft and gives them ample time to screw up but way too much control, long enough to screw things up.
That total control aspect would appeal to Hasler but as previously mentioned he may leave the salary cap a mess as he has done before. 1 thing that I feel may appeal to Des though is this squad could potentially be similar to the Manly team he had that won GF's with, and that being some good junior talent coming through like he had worked with at Manly like the Stewart bros, DCE, Foran and the turbos which came much later but he had them firing and made them reps. Saints have Sloan, Bud, Feagai twins, Amone and 2 x Couchmans. He may not need to dip to much into the market just plug gaps as he has good youth. And the players seem to love Des and stay for him alone like the Turbo's did. The Dogs had no juniors and he had to look elsewhere hence the mess he left there with the cap.