antonius
Coach
- Messages
- 10,104
There's quite a few posts on here refering to the lack of loyalty to the club being shown by players lately. I think we can blame one bloke for that. One Andrew Johns, who played the club off last year against union, to gain what was for him a very lucrative deal. We have players like Tahu being critised for leaving last year and being called a mercinary. When he signed his first contract with us it was common knowledge that he told the club offer me what you think I'm worth and I'll sign, which he did. He trusted us to do the right thing. When his contract came up he hung around while the Johns fiasco gathered momentum and in the end said stuff ya, and left. Ben Kennedy has stated that part of the reason he left was because of the drawn out negotiations last year, when the club couldn't move until Johns was sewn up. Daniel Abraham knocked back a huge offer from the Warriors at his last contract negotiation purely to stay at the club he took $130,000, when he could of gotten $200,000 plus with the warriors. We have people on here saying he should take a pay cut because he's injury prone!!! he's been taking a pay cut for the life of his current contract. The same people claiming Abes take a cut, haven't said much about the contract Johns is on, lets face it he's (Johns) spent a fair bit of time on the side lines for various reasons. What I'm trying to say is it cuts both ways loyalty, Guys like Abes and Simmo have been loyal, they've played for less than they could get elsewhere, when has Johns done that? the club pandered to him last year and I will bet players like Simmo would have to wonder why they didn't adopt the same attitude as Johns when their contracts were up. We used to have a loyalty thing going here in Newcastle, I'd say the fact that it has gradually dissapeared is down to the farce that was allowed to go on last year.