Roberts will not get 500k+ unless one of the rich clubs give him third parties.
I struggle to see how Kurt Gidley, Beau Scott, Tyrone Roberts, Adam Clydsdale, Joey Leilua can only get us Hodkinson and Paea. That's pretty much what you're saying. They're some of the highest paid players at the club we've lost. We have released about 20 other players that make up for our fringe signings and upgrades. Then we have McManus and Houston's money. Remember we stopped paying Boyd's contract this year and we were offering Packer a big deal too.
Everyone goes on about the upgrades but to put it into perspective, let's say Sione got a 300k upgrade, that right there is Cuthbertson's money. Let's say Sims got a 200k upgrade, that's Mason's money. Gagai gets a 200k upgrade, that's Dobson's money. There's another 15+ players we have lost too.
We are losing 5 times the amount than we are gaining. We have lost several of our highest paid players in the last 2 years along with about 20 others and we have signed two quality first graders and a handful of rookies and rejects and the rest are filled up with our own kids stepping up from NYC/NSW Cup. Yes we upgraded a few players but they're only upgrades. It's not like we were paying Sione nothing and all of a sudden we are paying him 450k out of the blue.
Nobody has a clue what's really going on in the cap but to me I can't see how we don't have enough for a quality back and a quality forward. Brown has already said himself that we are better off than most other clubs and we are waiting for the right player to come up so take that as you will.