As for Farrell, he is as good a chance as most others of starting round one in the top 17. He and Morgan are the two best defensive centres in the team, and I have no doubt Arthur's will choose one of them over a better attacking option that is not quite ready to defend at centre in first grade.
We have a couple of backline positions open, without clear first choice players at those positions. This means we need legitimate first grade options at those positions, and ideally those options will be cheap enough that it doesn't hurt us to have some of them in reserve grade at any one time.
Supposing you have $300k to spend on a starting centre and a backup. Ideally you would pay your starting centre $200k (for example) with his backup on $100k (for example, and this is only to illustrate the relationship between the salaries) or even have the backup outside the top 25, on about $80k, with the entire $300k going to the starter - what a perfect world, having an NRL capable backup outside the top 25 salary cap. Or even better, having a starter who never misses a game. This is ideal because at full strength you have the least amount of salary cap on the sideline.
The way it sometimes has to happen though, is for that $300k to be split relatively evenly between two fringe players (partway between starters and backups), for example with Farrell and Morgan both on about $150k (again, this is just for example). Whichever one misses out on the top 17 spot is obviously the backup. The reason this setup often happens is due to lack of genuine top 17 players on the market. The disadvantage of this is that the guy who ends up in first grade isn't as good as a more expensive, 'genuine' first grader. The advantage is that the backup is higher quality than the backup on $100k (or less) at the club with the more expensive starting centre. There is also the benefit of genuine competition for a spot. The $300k centre with the second tier backup doesn't have anyone realistically challenging him for his jersey, whereas the two $150k players fighting for one spot are in genuine competition.
Of course, the $300k player almost certainly has no need for external motivation - that's part of why he's worth so much.
