. JARRYD HAYNE'S manager, Wayne Beavis, has been whispering to rival clubs that Hayne will test his worth on the open market as the Eels stock up on big-name backs. Squeezing Hayne in under the cap in years to come will be a challenge if Israel Folau's management team get its way. Take it as fact - the asking price from Folau's agent is $1 million a season. Good judges in the game say that is about $400,000 more than his market value. Folau is not being greedy. He has had talks with the Eels without his agent and knows what he is worth. Hayne will be a prime target for teams across league, rugby and perhaps even AFL when he comes off contract at the end of next season. The issue for the Eels is that they will have about $2 million invested in Will Hopoate, Chris Sandow and Folau. Hayne is one of the best big-occasion players in the game - the criticism of him is that he hasn't produced his Origin form on a consistent enough basis since his phenomenal run in 2009. The Eels keep saying they are doing the Folau deal in the right way - by working with the NRL. It would appear they would have to because word out of the NRL is that the money rug was pulled out from under their feet following a meeting with NRL salary cap auditor Ian Schubert. There is no question that Parramatta want the Folau deal to happen and so does the NRL - but until the salary cap for next year is fully sorted the deal might be tough to finalise. What is certain is that there are third-party sponsors lining up to get involved with Folau. Not only is he extremely interesting from a news perspective, he is also about as clean as you get when it comes to his image, and his time in the AFL has taught him to be an excellent media performer. His business skills might need some work, however. I keep hearing that Folau pulled the pin on his AFL deal without consulting his management team. He decided to quit after talking to family and friends and rang Andrew Demetriou. It is unclear if an exit fee could have been organised but you can bet that his agent would have liked the chance to have a crack
