Rumoured and Confirmed signings - Part 4

[Panfa]

Keep the young guys and get rid of tamou merrin

 

[Westernised Panther]

I forgot to add Leota

 

[franklin2323]

CHN, Kikau, Yeo and JFH are must keeps for me play in multiple positions. The rest I can take or leave RCG is good but is he worth the payrise he is due?

 

[TheFrog]

I forgot to add Leota

Leota wouldn't be on big money either. Not much point moving him on if he's performing well.

 

[Aliceinwonderland]

CHN, Kikau, Yeo and JFH are must keeps for me play in multiple positions. The rest I can take or leave RCG is good but is he worth the payrise he is due?

I think he is. I believe we are OK (salary cap wise for 2019) but some will not get re-signed. I think keep the locals and let the imports go, replace them if possible with cheaper locals. Mckendry I can't see staying beyond this year, Wal won't be re-signed. Some depth players will be replaced.

But I'll leave that for a higher pay grade than mine.

 

[tripster]

In the interests of roughly guesstimating our salary cap position at the start of the 2020 season, I started trying to find when most of our current squad are contracted until.

I couldn't find it all in one place (at least not reliably - Zerotackle's data was not up to date, and often did not reflect announcements from the club).

It was also useful to know, from a salary cap point of view, when the player signed their extension (because presumably, it is their market value at the time of signing that is likely to reflect their current contract value).

With a bit of Googling I was able to figure it out, and here it is compiled into a table. I have highlighted in yellow all of those players whose contracts expire at the end of 2019, and we might be looking to keep. The column with the season year is the season that a player is contracted until the end of (not the start of).

If anyone has other sources to suggest any of the dates below are incorrect, please shout out.

I think we can also tell from when some of those players were extended, and the stage of or time in their careers when they were extended, who might be on 'unders' compared to their market value and the problems that will present for us at the end of next year if we want to keep them.

For example, Blake was extended in 2016 (when he was still developing into the player he is now). He is someone you'd expect we would have to upgrade significantly to keep. RCG's contract expires at the end of 2019. We extended him in 2015 for 4 years, when he was a shadow of the player he is today. You think he would be on a lot less than other clubs would be prepared to pay for him. He is going to need a big upgrade.

Kikau will be difficult too - extended in April 2017, in the year of his first grade debut, when he was a fringe first grader (at least in the eyes of Griffin).

Yeo would certainly not be getting market value for his services, but we have him until the end of 2021!

We will have Merrin and Tamou to the end of 2020, so we won't be 'moving them on' to keep younger guys, unless we do a Bulldogs and pay part of their salary (assuming they would only get paid less elsewhere).

Looking at the data below gives me a real headache - no wonder Gus looks like he barely sleeps. For those players whose contract ends at the end of the 2019 presumably talks will already be under way now and we would want to be finalising things at the end of the year).

 

[mxlegend99]

Priority in keeping needs to be:

Cleary
Kikau
Blake
RCG
JFH
Egan
Hetherington

Happily let Leota, Mckendry, Ellis, Luai and Katoa leave to keep them. Although if we lost Egan and kept Katoa it wouldnt be that bad.

 

[OldPanther]

Here's a difficult hypothetical question. If we had to lose three of our forwards in order to keep the majority of our pack, along with Cleary, who would you reluctantly let go out of the following:

Merrin
RCG
CHN
Yeo
JFH
Kikau
Tamou
Hetheringron

Picking 3 I'd go with:

Tamou
CHN
Merrin

Not for being bad or anything they just make the most sense. Merrin/Tamou not locals as are the priority now and CHN is in the back row with Yeo/Kikau.

Priority in keeping needs to be:

Cleary
Kikau
Blake
RCG
JFH
Egan
Hetherington

Happily let Leota, Mckendry, Ellis, Luai and Katoa leave to keep them. Although if we lost Egan and kept Katoa it wouldnt be that bad.

Agree with this though I hope Egan is the long term plan. Katoa is an absolute weapon.

 

[umina panther]

I think he is. I believe we are OK (salary cap wise for 2019) but some will not get re-signed. I think keep the locals and let the imports go, replace them if possible with cheaper locals. Mckendry I can't see staying beyond this year, Wal won't be re-signed. Some depth players will be replaced.

But I'll leave that for a higher pay grade than mine.

McKendry has no reason to walk away from the last year of his deal. He'll very likely never earn that sort of money again in his life and I doubt the NRL will let him medically retire due to his knee being an ongoing injury

 

[franklin2323]

I think he is. I believe we are OK (salary cap wise for 2019) but some will not get re-signed. I think keep the locals and let the imports go, replace them if possible with cheaper locals. Mckendry I can't see staying beyond this year, Wal won't be re-signed. Some depth players will be replaced.

But I'll leave that for a higher pay grade than mine.

2019 we would be fine just can't make external signings.

After we replace Crichton, Peachey, Wallace, Browne and McKendry we should have $500k to work with

 

[soc123_au]

McKendry has no reason to walk away from the last year of his deal. He'll very likely never earn that sort of money again in his life and I doubt the NRL will let him medically retire due to his knee being an ongoing injury

I'm pretty sure he signed for 5 years last time, so the knee wasnt an issue when he signed the contract. You would think that would make it eligible for a medical retirement. He hadnt really had any major injuries from memory until the current deal kicked in.

 

[umina panther]

I'm pretty sure he signed for 5 years last time, so the knee wasnt an issue when he signed the contract. You would think that would make it eligible for a medical retirement. He hadnt really had any major injuries from memory until the current deal kicked in.

Hopefully, it would be good for him and the club The other option is we pay him out under the table

 

[franklin2323]

Hopefully, it would be good for him and the club The other option is we pay him out under the table

He will go I have no doubt Gus is ruthless and will get his way

 

[mxlegend99]

Hard to believe 3 or 4 years ago we were close to offloading Mckendry due to being on overs.

Instead he gets a new contract and has done his ACL the past 3 seasons. I hope he feels he owes us one and retires if asked to.

 

[franklin2323]

On the general cap. We are getting to the stage where our Top 17 is sorted. All quality players so I'd be fine with anywhere up to 13 minimum squad players.
At $85k a player it leaves $8m for the top 17. I see no reason why we can't keep our top 17 even top 20 going forward

 

[ashton]

Penrith have signed talented Tweed Heads brothers Brayden and Glenn McGrady. 21-year-old Brayden and 17-year-old Glenn have both signed two-year deals with the Panthers. Source Westernweekender

 

[mxlegend99]

On the general cap. We are getting to the stage where our Top 17 is sorted. All quality players so I'd be fine with anywhere up to 13 minimum squad players.
At $85k a player it leaves $8m for the top 17. I see no reason why we can't keep our top 17 even top 20 going forward

Not to mention the cap can go up too.

How much is anyones guess. But a $10m cap could become a $12m cap in a few years.

Storm have shown the best way to sustain success is to keep your spine together as the msin priority.(or cheat the salary cap and keep everyone)

Now obviously their spine was exceptional. But our spine could be the next exceptional spine. Maybe not as good as theirs was at its peak. But it can be the best spine once thats gone.

Cleary is an Origin player now. We have Edwards and DWZ with great potential at fullback and Katoa and Egan at hooker.

6 is really open once Maloney retires. But the Storm 6 changed frequently too. Out of all the spines in the competition. Ours is the only one with the age and ability to be the next longterm stud spine. If we keep them together with age and experience they should only improve.

Obviously guys like Kikau. Blake. RCG etc. Are important too. But a gun spine player can demand ridiculous money for good reason. Elite halves especially are difficult to find.

 

[franklin2323]

By the time Maloney ends one of the kids behind will be ready to step up.

Barring crazy offers elsewhere I'd be looking to keep

Edwards
Mansour
DWZ
Blake
Cleary
RCG
Leota
May
Kikau
CHN
Yeo
JFH
Egan

As our core team. That will push for top 4 most years and the rest can be in and out around them

 

[OldPanther]

By the time Maloney ends one of the kids behind will be ready to step up.

Barring crazy offers elsewhere I'd be looking to keep

Edwards
Mansour
DWZ
Blake
Cleary
RCG
Leota
May
Kikau
CHN
Yeo
JFH
Egan

As our core team. That will push for top 4 most years and the rest can be in and out around them

Bold: Who is most likely out of the young blokes?

As for the list I agree. We can be very successful with that.

 

[TheFrog]

Wal won't be re-signed.

An article on the NRL site says that Wal has "a couple of options he is weighing up", and he'll announce a decision in the near future.

Super League perhaps? A job on the coaching staff at Panthers? Whatever, it's pretty clear this is his last year with us as a player.