Rumoured Targets 3

[PhilGould]

Latest on Gagai via Toohey's article;

Knights offer is close to $2.6m over 4 years but Souths offer is believed to have blown ours and everyone else's out of the water. Mixed messages coming from club insiders about their confidence of keeping him, definitely less confident than a month or 2 ago. He's weighing up the pros and cons of moving his young and extended family to Sydney and Toohey says family & lifestyle considerations are important, as is the money obviously. Knights won't get into a bidding war so seems that offer will be final.

Brown also still confident the player market will open up and good players will be looking for new homes.

 

[Burns]

Well that sure is reassuring from Brown.

 

[Caped Crusader]

If we lose Gagai we are screwed even further. With all Danes flaws, he is still the best outside back available for 2018

He and Ross are our only 2 players out wide capable of creating something and we can't afford to lose either. Ponga will add something outside next year but without another point of attack to take some pressure off him he will be easily contained

If we let him go and gain nothing for 2018, which is starting to look likely, it's going to be very very bad

 

[Caped Crusader]

How is that going to happen?

If we lose Dane well need to sign another outside back, it's simply numbers

We may not end up paying more, although given this club it could very well happen, but we will be short odds to get a worse player

 

[Spot On]

Well, without knowing the size of the Souths offer I'm more than happy with the Knights offer for Gagai if Toohey is accurate.

650K for a centre of Dane's ability is tremendous money and exactly what I thought he would be offered from us.

If he bags 700K plus elsewhere he has won the lottery like a lot of other good first graders recently.

Good luck to him. He has to take the money. Glad he isn't foregoing hundreds of thousands each year, every year to play in Brisbane. Not sure if Souths have a squad capable of doing too much at the end of the season in the next few years though.

 

[slotmachine]

Brownie better be down on his knees praying to whatever deity he believes in that the cap ends up being a lot lower than what the clubs want.

The Dogs might be done shedding contracted players if Kasiano to Storm and Eastwood to Tigers are legit.

 

[Spot On]

Just out of curiosity, are there many people here who believe Nathan Ross has performed any worse than Gagai the past 2 years????

 

[Johns Magic]

If we lose Dane well need to sign another outside back, it's simply numbers

Um, thanks for that.

We were set to sign SKD for less than half what we are offering Gagai, not more. There will be other centres in that boat.

Its not hard to see what Brown's principles are: we won't pay through the roof for a centre. And I don't blame him when we are just talking about a guy like Gagai who until last year wasn't an Origin contender. We aren't talking about a GI or Lyon here.

We may not end up paying more, although given this club it could very well happen, but we will be short odds to get a worse player

I will say it now: there is ZERO chance that if we lose Gagai we will go out and offer even more to a lesser centre.

We will find someone who represents much better value and so we should.

 

[Johns Magic]

Well, without knowing the size of the Souths offer I'm more than happy with the Knights offer for Gagai if Toohey is accurate.

650K for a centre of Dane's ability is tremendous money and exactly what I thought he would be offered from us.

If he bags 700K plus elsewhere he has won the lottery like a lot of other good first graders recently.

Good luck to him. He has to take the money. Glad he isn't foregoing hundreds of thousands each year, every year to play in Brisbane. Not sure if Souths have a squad capable of doing too much at the end of the season in the next few years though.

Abso-f**king-lutely

 

[slotmachine]

I don't think anyone is arguing Gagai represents value for money at those numbers, but that's not the point.

 

[Caped Crusader]

Um, thanks for that.

We were set to sign SKD for less than half what we are offering Gagai, not more. There will be other centres in that boat.

Its not hard to see what Brown's principles are: we won't pay through the roof for a centre. And I don't blame him when we are just talking about a guy like Gagai who until last year wasn't an Origin contender. We aren't talking about a GI or Lyon here.



I will say it now: there is ZERO chance that if we lose Gagai we will go out and offer even more to a lesser centre.

We will find someone who represents much better value and so we should.

I dunno, I cannot see much in the way of quality outside backs being available for 2018. So the likely hood we end up with someone worse than Dane is high

I'm not comfortable with making our side worse just to save a few $. Value for money doesn't really count for much if the quality is low

 

[Johns Magic]

I don't think anyone is arguing Gagai represents value for money at those numbers, but that's not the point.

What is the point? That people like you will get a big chance to sink the boot into the club so they better offer him way too much money?

If we lose Gagai and sign SKD or any other decent first-grade centre I don't think any potential recruit is going to be fazed.

There are plenty of good centres and wingers still off-contract, and if players do get forced out of clubs then those positions are the most likely to get squeezed.

If we offer Gagai a cent over $700K my skin will crawl. $650K is right and if we get beat, fine.

 

[slotmachine]

If you haven't got it by now you're being willfully ignorant.

 

[Johns Magic]

I dunno, I cannot see much in the way of quality outside backs being available for 2018. So the likely hood we end up with someone worse than Dane is high

I'm not comfortable with making our side worse just to save a few $. Value for money doesn't really count for much if the quality is low

I would swap Gagai for Aaron Gray and keep the $300k+ change in a heartbeat.

I suspect Hopoate will give in and play Sundays. Yes please if so.

Gideon Gela-Mosby is an electric young winger. Put Ross to centre, problem solved.

That's off top of my head and not including SKD.

 

[Johns Magic]

If you haven't got it by now you're being willfully ignorant.

Well how about you have a go at explaining the point? And if it's "no one else will ever want to sign with us ever again" I will laugh at you.

 

[perverse]

I just can't believe that some would squabble over $50k in our position.

JM, Spots, et al - where are we going to spend the money saved on Gagai in the next few years, when we can't spend the whopping mountain of cash that we've already saved? What is your timeline for fixing this mess now?

Without seeing Souths offer I can't really comment on it - but if it blows ours out of the water then I guess we're in the $800k+ range. That's hard to justify for sure, but what isn't hard to justify is increasing our offer another 50k or so in good faith to acknowledge his demand on the market. I just don't get how we can afford to pay him $600k for the past 3 years, but $700k or more would somehow destroy our salary cap when the cap is going up and we've already got millions to spend even if it doesn't.

 

[Spot On]

I don't think anyone is arguing Gagai represents value for money at those numbers, but that's not the point.

...and the point is???

Back to where we were pre Brown paying huge money for blokes who were not much better, if at all, than the young blokes we have contracted here now??? Watch blokes on squillions put piss poor effort into their performances most weeks and when contract time comes up, ask for an upgrade..... and f**king get it.

f**k that.

I'm happy to watch blokes paid what they are worth battle their guts out and lose.

 

[Spot On]

I just can't believe that some would squabble over $50k in our position.

Without seeing Souths offer I can't really comment on it.

Exactly.

That is why I simply prefaced my comment by saying I am extremely happy with our offer. It is a fantastic offer for Dane.

However, I'm assuming the Souths offer is a lot more. Either that or Dane wants out to go to a better team and the final amount will not be known. It could be less than 50K, it could be more???? We might never know. But 650K is a decent throw at the stumps from us.

I'm assuming Brown and Mooney know the Souths offer and Dane's true feelings for his future and we may not hear the full story for a while as Gags seems to respect the place and people and doesn't want to leave on a bad note and trash the place.

There's obviously a few scenarios here behind the scenes but a lowball offer from us is not one I will believe in.

I noticed no one has commented on my previous question - Has Nathan Ross played an worse than Dane Gagai the past 2 seasons???

 

[Hardcore_Fan]

We don't lose any attacking power by having Nathan Ross and Pete Mat as our centres next year. I'd even say we are in a better position moving Ross to centre to cover the departure of gagai.

 

[perverse]

I'm happy to watch blokes paid what they are worth battle their guts out and lose.

We'll this is the source of our disagreement then. I'm not happy to do that, and think it's an idealistic philosophy that doesn't overly apply in our situation.