Revealed: The full extent of the Knights salary cap woes

[Frederick]

Revealed: The full extent of the Knights salary cap woes

Barry Toohey, The Daily Telegraph
August 13, 2016 10:18pm

WITH the Newcastle Knights on the verge of securing a second consecutive wooden spoon, here are the sobering statistics that reveal the full extent of the Knights salary cap nightmare and the club’s mismanagement of the cap since the end of Wayne Bennett’s coaching rein in 2014.

Robbie Rochow’s decision to quit the club at the end of this season to join South Sydney will bring the number of players who have left after playing in the NRL for the Knights over the past three seasons to 27.

Jeremy Smith’s retirement in three weeks’ time will make that 28.

Incredibly, over that same period, just 11 players from other clubs have been signed with two of them — Tariq Sims and Carlos Tuimavave — already gone.

Three of the nine left — Mitch Barnett, Brendan Elliot and Peter Mata’utia — were signed by current coach Nathan Brown mid-season on cheap deals.

BROKEN: Tigers finals hopes in disarray

OUT: Knights want to punt Mullen

So how is it possible that so many players, several on huge salaries, have left without being replaced and where has all that salary cap money gone?

It’s the question that has been gnawing away at angry and frustrated Knights’ fans and is why so many young local juniors have had to be promoted before their time by Brown to fill the void.

The answer?


The money has been eaten up by inflated salaries, disastrous back-ended deals, hefty upgrades and a host of questionable recruitment decisions. The bottom line is there has been a complete lack of forward planning not helped by the turnover of coaches.

The finger has been pointed at Bennett and his quick fix quest for a premiership.

When he departed the club at the end of 2014, the cap was already under severe pressure.

A total of 12 players left at the same time as Bennett and the only new signings to play in the NRL under Rick Stone in 2015 were Tariq Sims, Jack Stockwell and Carlos Tuimavave.

But while the cap was already a mess, it has been made worse by poor recruitment decisions since then.

The club is trying to offload Akuila Uate.
Kade Snowden was signed to a new two year deal by Stone despite serious concerns over fitness.

Trent Hodkinson was brought in at $600,000 a season with the club then forced to pay a further $200,000 to Tyrone Roberts to move him on to the Titans.

Stockwell was not an established NRL prop when he signed but was given a two year deal with next year worth $350,000.

You can’t help but just shake your head at those sorts of numbers and the money that some other players are being paid.

The upshot is Brown and head of football Darren Mooney are left to try and fix the mess.

But despite having a roster dominated by kids, he is still left with only pocket money to play with in 2017 unless Snowden’s quest for medical retirement is rubber-stamped by the NRL and the likes of Stockwell and Akuila Uate find new clubs.

It’s a self-inflicted disaster with a lot more pain to come yet.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...s/news-story/b168e3a2a575daa5baf86942d6b63bfc

 

[Zoidberg]

Well shit. I guess we knew this anyway but still.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Matt Gidley needs to stand down now. At the end of the day, he is the boss and has the final say.

 

[Knight76]

I think Gidley will stand down once the sale of the club goes through. Either that or be sacked by the new owner.

I thought I read in one of his updates or somewhere a quote from him saying he would remain CEO until the sale. I kind of read that to be saying he will look to resign once we are sold.

 

[Hawkins]

I hope Hodkinson saves his money

 

[macavity]

That told us nothing

 

[Spot On]

Lol at the $$$ blokes have been on. The millionaires club. All the past and current "stars" should be sending Hags, Gids and Bennett Christmas gifts for the rest of their lives. They won lotto. Good on em.

 

[Burwood]

I've said this a few times now, but it doesn't get any less shocking- Adam Clydsdale was on $200,000. He signed a 3-year contract in early May 2013, played 2 matches later that season, and somehow was on a contract that paid him $200,000 by the time he left the club.

It's almost as if the club have a minimum wage of $200,000 and not $80,000 like every other NRL club.

I think the Mata'utia brothers will be the next contracts to come under question. I'm scared to think what Pat and Chanel are on after the club's effort to sign Sione.

Also, how can that article be written without even mentioning Hagan or Midley? Toohey seems happy to point the finger at Bennett and Stone, but the others get off scott-free and are simply referred to as "the club".

Hagan was in the papers earlier in the season criticising the club for letting Tapine go and said quite proudly how he would have paid him the $500,000 because that's what you need to do to keep young players here.

Would appreciate if someone could dig up that article- I've had a look for it but had no luck so far.

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

Nothing new in this. I expected to read what we may have available for, 2017.
When do we stop paying for Roberts?

 

[Glendale]

I've said this a few times now, but it doesn't get any less shocking- Adam Clydsdale was on $200,000. He signed a 3-year contract in early May 2013, played 2 matches later that season, and somehow was on a contract that paid him $200,000 by the time he left the club.

It's almost as if the club have a minimum wage of $200,000 and not $80,000 like every other NRL club.

I think the Mata'utia brothers will be the next contracts to come under question. I'm scared to think what Pat and Chanel are on after the club's effort to sign Sione.

Also, how can that article be written without even mentioning Hagan or Midley? Toohey seems happy to point the finger at Bennett and Stone, but the others get off scott-free and are simply referred to as "the club".

Hagan was in the papers earlier in the season criticising the club for letting Tapine go and said quite proudly how he would have paid him the $500,000 because that's what you need to do to keep young players here.

Would appreciate if someone could dig up that article- I've had a look for it but had no luck so far.

I think Clydesdale was on even more than $200,000... Which was the main reason Browny cut him at the start of this year. And also yeah, f*** Hages. I wish people in the media would name and shame him in the media for once.

Jack Stockwell worth $350,000 absolutely boggles the mind... Unbelievable.

 

[Spot On]

Player managers must have have eaten out well after meeting with Hagan.

"Well pay your player anything you want. That's how we do it around here!"

FFS.

 

[Spot On]

I think Clydesdale was on even more than $200,000... Which was the main reason Browny cut him at the start of this year. And also yeah, f*** Hages. I wish people in the media would name and shame him in the media for once.

Jack Stockwell worth $350,000 absolutely boggles the mind... Unbelievable.

I know it's a double edged sword but you would think a bloke like Stockwell would have busted his arse off to ensure he earned that contract and set himself up for an even bigger pay day if he showed ripper form over the duration.

Instead, it seems that no matter how you performed, players and their managers pretty much had it figured out that they could simply say there are three or four clubs chasing my client so show us the money. And we did.

That's why Brown has to eat the shit sandwich he's been left and why player managers now know they won't be able to bargain much.

Makes it harder to attract players but I think I'd rather see young blokes earn the dollars Brown knows they are worth, as long as the effort is there, verses watch player mangers tell the club they must pay double what their client is worth and then watch them have a holiday for the duration of the deal until the last few months before negotiations start all over again. That's pretty much the last decade at Newcastle.

 

[Noname36]

The Hodkinson and Stockwell deals are even worse than I thought.

 

[Spot On]

Where's 1qaz???

Didn't he claim there were no cap problems in Newcastle? Brown simply using it as an excuse!

OMG.

 

[Jono078]

Nothing we didn't know.

I'm glad we've hit the reset button this year. Sure next year might be more of the same but I have big expectations for 2018.

A lot of big players and many players in general will be off contract as instructed by the RLPA so we should have some money to fire away and start building our squad into something great.

 

[slotmachine]

Why would a big name player come to the knights?

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Why would a big name player come to the knights?

If Brown can improve the results next year and at least get us looking like a team that is improving then he's got a sales pitch to make to prospective targets.

 

[perverse]

That's a huge "if" at this point.

 

[slotmachine]

The stink of three spoons on the trot won't wash off that easily.

You've got locals leaving for less money at the moment.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

You only have to look at the way Canberra has turned itself around to know that it's possible. 3 years ago players were jumping ship from that club and they couldn't sign anyone (not to mention players kept back flipping on contracts) and were near the bottom of the table. Now they're a team stacked with quality players and they're sitting in the top 4.

The Sharks are another example of this, they picked up a couple of wooden spoons a few years ago and had no money and there were rumours that they weren't using all of their cap (sound familiar?) and people were even talking about relocating them, but they're now a top 2 team that is chock full of good players and they didn't have any problems signing quality players last year.

There's 2 examples of other teams who were both absolute basket cases who have been through a couple of really rough patches in recent years and it didn't look like they would come out of it but now look where they are.

This gives me hope that in the long run we'll come out of this a much stronger club. With all due respect to you if you don't believe this will happen and that the situation is truly hopeless then there's not much point in continuing to support this team, either support another team or watch another sport.