CANBERRA chairman John McIntyre says the club has no intention of paying anything like the $200,000 English club Bradford wants as a transfer fee for granting premiership-winning halfback Matt Orford a release to return to the NRL.
''Clubs have got to be reasonable when they are dealing with issues like this,'' McIntyre said yesterday. ''We've been reasonable when it comes to the releasing of players to go to other clubs in the past. We're dealing with a young man's career in this instance. He's looking to resume playing in the NRL and we're able to give him that opportunity, but the issue is the $200,000 and we can't get involved in making a payment of that size.
''We might be prepared to negotiate something [with Bradford], but it would be a long way short of $200,000. Hopefully, there will be some common sense used when it comes to sorting all of this out. The Poms can be pretty good at brinkmanship, but at the end of the day we might have to consider our fall-back option if we can't come to an agreement over Orford, and that would be to go with the halves we have.''
Advertisement: Story continues below
The Raiders have been looking for a new player in the halves since five-eighth Terry Campese tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee during the finals series, necessitating a reconstruction.
Campese also suffered other damage to the knee, which will extend the recovery period, and there is a big possibility he won't be able to make it on to the field at all next season. The club was originally considering signing an established halfback in the short term so that the club's emerging player in the halves, Josh McCrone, could learn off him next year, but finding such a playmaker became a necessity after Campese went down.
McIntyre said his understanding was that Canberra chief executive Don Furner had settled on terms with Orford, through his manager, George Mimis, on a two-year deal, leaving the transfer fee as the remaining hurdle. It is understood Orford is owed $200,000 in wages by Bradford, and that the Super League club wished to retain that and treat it as the transfer fee in exchange for releasing him.
McIntyre indicated that the Raiders wanted Orford and his manager to resolve that issue with Bradford.
''I don't know that Don has had any [transfer fee] discussions at all with Bradford,'' McIntyre said. ''I understand David [Furner, the Canberra coach] was going to the [Anthony Mundine-Garth Wood] fight last night, and was expecting to catch up with Orford there. We'd like to have the bloke come along and start training with us, and take it from there, but I'm not sure if we can do that at this stage. We wouldn't want to do anything that might jeopardise the deal.''
Negotiations between Orford's manager and Parramatta recently broke down, leaving Canberra as the last remaining option for the veteran No.7, who played in the Manly side that won the 2008 grand final over Melbourne. Mimis said at the time that Eels coach Stephen Kearney had told him the club could not wait any longer to find out if Bradford would grant him a release without asking for a transfer fee. Parramatta are now going with their existing halves next year.
Meanwhile, leading player manager Wayne Beavis said last night he could not be sure when the NRL would make a decision on whether to accept South Sydney's contract with superstar Greg Inglis in its current form. Beavis is handling the matter on behalf of Inglis's manager, Allan Gainey, while Gainey is away. Salary cap auditor Ian Schubert is deciding whether the value of third-party deals that have been organised for Inglis should be included under the cap.
''I spoke to 'Shoey' and he said he had all the paper-work necessary to help him make a decision,'' Beavis said. ''We've just got to wait.''
