My understanding of a contract like sailor, Pearson etc is as follows
1. off season - base weekly payment
2. During the season base weekly payment plus bonus per NRL game played
so paying for players in nov, dec, jan etc is fairly cost effective, especially half the squads contracts who are middle to low base contracts
Nov, dec, jan gives us a chance to pay minimal for players and if we are truly trying to move on a couple of backline players to free up some cash
Merrin and Williame are not counted against the salary cap in 2020 I believe due to coming from the UK
It is starting to look like we have free money ie $350k pa min for Luc Lulia and probably about $150k pa min for Pearson
Merrin and Williame NIL in 2020 means we may have finally solved the $500k pa we needed to replace JDB now if we choose to...... plus we would also receive his $550k pa back again come the court decision if not in his favour
that means we may have total $1mill plus you work with come feb !!
unless we have used some money already to average / pre pay 2020 payments from a player like Lomax who would cost us more in 2021 onwards with his next contract
All players count towards the salary cap no matter where they come from.
If it was that easy Manly Sharks and Dogs would of signed poms to fix their salary cap.
Base salary do work that way and are good in principle but can hurt you if you have a bad year or injuries.
All bonuses are totaled at the end of the year and are taken off the next years cap.
Take this year Lomax is on a good bonus and played most of the year in FG plus as you pointed out players lke Pearson and Rava getting FG bonuses. Then we have Saab Ford Sailor making FG debuts and getting big bonuses add players who have rep clauses in their contracts. That could add up to as much as 300k out if 2020 cap.
Luke is a great example, the club said he is on base contract plus bonuses. Just my figures here but say it's 120k plus 5k every FG game
The guys plays 20min every week off the bench and earns another 120k.
That's gets added to next years cap.
So Luke cost 240k