Disagree, it's not irrelevant at al! Yes, he was an economical choice and a good one for us, but if we had opted to not go down that path we could have found props elsewhere. He had no other option. It was us taking the chance on him, not the other way around.
I agree that he shouldn't be signing with us on loyalty alone, but to claim that he owes us nothing is ridiculous. If we didn't sign him, his football career was over.
Benny of course we had other choices but he was by far and away the best choice $ for $.
Did we buy from the goodness of our heart or in the belief we could get a contract registered?
Without Packer's personal commitment and determination to rehabilitate we would never have got his contract registered so he has already fulfilled all his obligations.
At that time we were the only club willing to consider taking him on but he had to languish initially in nowhere land, then reggies with no guarantee of 1st grade ever eventuating as it was a matter for the NRL.
Everyone is blindly assuming that if we didn't take Packer his career was over which is just plain stupid because he could have continued on with his rehabilitation for 2 years and showed his worth as a member of society and played football in a non NRL environment and perhaps been picked up by another club in a similar situation to Dave Taylor and several others.
Packer is a very positive sort of person and I have no doubt that he would have found a way with or without us as he understands he f**ked up and is willing to make huge sacrifices to be a better person.
The notion that he owes us something is ridiculous and doesn't pay enough credit to Packer for what he has done for himself and as a by product our club has prospered as well.
He could have easily been a Dane Nielsen and he chose not to be all power to Russell.
