Tapine issue gets ugly

[Chicken_Hunter]

f**k i hate this gutless club. Seems, the admin, like the players, cave in at the first sign of adversity.

 

[Johns Magic]

Not sure what you're all crying about.

How much would Tapine have been on this year? 120K?

Did you think we were gonna clear up $300K this year by releasing him?

It looks pretty proportional to me.

80K at this point of the year would make a difference if we are trying to sign someone for 2016 which we apparently are so I'll take that money and get rid of the headache thanks.

Probably better than the alternative of having a whinging 2nd grader bringing the club down all year and paying him for the right to do so.

Not to mention the club has already been dragged through the mud for sticking it's heels in as long as it has til now. I am actually happy with how much they stuck in.

 

[gorilla with a shotgun]

I think Brown played this the wrong way.

Probably made that threat and couldn't back down on it.

Surely you'd just chuck the number 17 on him and make him play interchange prop for the entire season.

Pros: He'd be better than whoever is your 4th best prop, he wouldn't develop his natural game as a backrower so you give no advantage to the Raiders, He'd only be on minimum wage or close to this year.

Why make your team worse for 80k in the bank?

Warriors played Maloney, We continued to play Milford etc etc

 

[Burwood]

The bad thing about this situation compared to the dozens that happen every other year was that Tapine was virtually on a minimum wage contract- it was signed all the way back in 2013, the year before he had even made his first grade debut. Skip forward to 2016 and, although he is still on the same salary, he is now a player worth well more than that to the team.

Canberra are effectively getting a $300,000 player (ballpark value this year, not what he is currently signed for or getting from 2017 onwards) and we are getting $85,000 back in return.

If Tapine was getting $300,000 under the salary cap this year, Newcastle would have no problems releasing him to Canberra because they'd at least be getting a decent part of his contract back to spend on another player. That money would be of value to the club. Instead we are getting $85,000, which is only $5,000 above the minimum wage. It's pretty much worthless.

Up until the club caved, I would have said that they were handling the situation quite well. They tried with a couple of clubs to organise a trade, they told Tapine that he would be playing NSW Cup. Unfortunately, when push came to shove, they gave in to the player and his manager and we are the only party to come out of this worse off.

The club should have held firm. They presented him with the option of going to Sydney for the year and Newcastle getting something in return. That would be fair. But he doesn't want to play for three clubs in 12 months? Tough. Take that deal or see out the year in NSW Cup.

 

[Whats Doing]

I would love to have Matt Gutless Gidley on the other side of the poker table

 

[Allstar Knights]

I think Brown played this the wrong way.

Probably made that threat and couldn't back down on it.

Surely you'd just chuck the number 17 on him and make him play interchange prop for the entire season.

Pros: He'd be better than whoever is your 4th best prop, he wouldn't develop his natural game as a backrower so you give no advantage to the Raiders, He'd only be on minimum wage or close to this year.

Why make your team worse for 80k in the bank?

Warriors played Maloney, We continued to play Milford etc etc

A young guy like Daniel Saifiti would offer way more at prop thanks. Mataora, too.

Tapine is very average up front. Play him on an edge and it's a different story.

 

[Burwood]

I would love to have Matt Gutless Gidley on the other side of the poker table

Haha I can just imagine. The river card is dealt, everyone checks, and he'd fold. :lol:

 

[Noname36]

I think Brown played this the wrong way.

Probably made that threat and couldn't back down on it.

Surely you'd just chuck the number 17 on him and make him play interchange prop for the entire season.

Pros: He'd be better than whoever is your 4th best prop, he wouldn't develop his natural game as a backrower so you give no advantage to the Raiders, He'd only be on minimum wage or close to this year.

Why make your team worse for 80k in the bank?

Warriors played Maloney, We continued to play Milford etc etc

Actually no Tapine is completely useless in the middle. All chucking the #17 on him would do would reward him with a FG spot over another young forward that can offer more upfront anyway.

Milford and Maloney are completely different - they have the ability to be game changing / match winning players and were important cogs in their sides so if you had the option to have them for another year of course you'd take advantage of that even if part of you did want to see them punished. Tapine is neither of those things (has the potential to maybe be in the future but not now) so the Knights receive absolutely no benefit from playing him in FG. The only ones that benefit are Tapine and the Raiders because he gets to spend more time developing with the FG squad.

Our team isn't made worse by not having Tapine there. It remains the same. In fact he was probably picked in FG at times last year when other players deserved it a lot more based on form but we went with him for his development because he had a lot of potential. Now he's gone though no use continuing to developing him to reach that. Need to move our attention onto the other kids coming through.

 

[Noname36]

Also how much did you guys think Tapine was on lol?

He was still on the contract negotiated before he really started playing FG. 80k would have been a large portion of his contract anyway - so if you wanted him released that was all we could have ever hoped for financially.

Our only option of "winning" here would have been to let him rot in NSW Cup, but then you'd have him and that f**kwit that's managing him crying victims in the media all year - causing more crap for the club - neither of them seem above any of that.

There's absolutely no way this could have worked out for us any better given the low value of his current contract. The rules are absolutely messed up and inside of them I'm not sure what people were expecting us to get from this?

 

[Swarzey]

I expected us to stand firm and play him in NSW Cup unless we got something more out of releasing him; aka a NSW Cup or even a decently developed U20's player. Something out of it instead of once again handing a decent player to the Raiders without getting anything in return.

But honestly I'm just glad this is done with. His manager is a merkin and you're right, the longer Tapine stayed at the club the more he would have ironically banged on about our lack of professionalism and the media eats this kind of stuff up.

 

[slotmachine]

He was going anyway. The Raiders weren't desperate to have him, I doubt he's in their best 17 at the moment. Holding out gains nothing and throws $80k away. With the way our cap situation is, that $80k is important. We got Pauli Pauli for $130k, for example...

 

[The Showstopper]

We all know the issues is TPAs. Darren Mooney better bring some serious ideas to the table and know how to manipulate a TPA to our advantage. Hodkinson is the obvious starting point given he is an Origin halfback at present. We have to show we can come up with TPAs and that it will bring an element of the players 'brand' being out there in the market. I do not buy the living in Newcastle thing as a deterrent at all. It comes down to player managers greed and their sheltered clients having no idea how to run their lives without an arse wiper. If a player cannot tell living in Newie is way cheaper than living in Sydney and they can catch a train or drive a car 90 mins south and still be way ahead financially then they are deadset beyond help.

 

[slotmachine]

Mooney isn't going to bring TPA's.

At the Sharks he was really good at signing guys that other clubs didn't want, and getting them to pay for the privilege. He needs to find more guys like Pauli Pauli, and hand out less deals like Gagai, Aku and Sione.

 

[The Showstopper]

If what you say has legs then we will probably end up with Luke Lewis at 34 yrs of age or the like.

 

[Noname36]

I expected us to stand firm and play him in NSW Cup unless we got something more out of releasing him; aka a NSW Cup or even a decently developed U20's player. Something out of it instead of once again handing a decent player to the Raiders without getting anything in return.

But honestly I'm just glad this is done with. His manager is a merkin and you're right, the longer Tapine stayed at the club the more he would have ironically banged on about our lack of professionalism and the media eats this kind of stuff up.

I'd rather us have the 80k than take some dud for the year in a trade because we were desperate - and that's all we could hope for in return when Tapine was on the low contract he was. We weren't getting anyone good (there's only a couple of players at the Raiders that could really make our squad any better and that wouldn't be happening). If anyone suddenly comes off contract during the year an extra 80k could be the difference there - like slotmachine pointed out Pauli was only 130k.

 

[Spot On]

I think Brown played this the wrong way.

Probably made that threat and couldn't back down on it.

Surely you'd just chuck the number 17 on him and make him play interchange prop for the entire season.

Pros: He'd be better than whoever is your 4th best prop, he wouldn't develop his natural game as a backrower so you give no advantage to the Raiders, He'd only be on minimum wage or close to this year.

Why make your team worse for 80k in the bank?

Warriors played Maloney, We continued to play Milford etc etc

Jo Tapine is nowhere near the player those two were bud. Poor, poor comparison.

Brown has done the right thing here. I back him 100%. Can't see Tapine being on much more this season than Canberra have forked out anyway.

Nearly $2 million sure is a large investment by the Raiders. Browny will be keeping an eye on their promising juniors I hope. There will be some there worth pursuing over the next few years no doubt. They've committed a lot of $$$ to the team they have assembled and as we all know, you can't keep 'em all. What comes around, goes around.

 

[Burwood]

The sad thing is that there's probably two likely scenarios with what will happen to the extra $85,000:

1) We keep it for a player that is offloaded by another club midseason. We chase them hard, but they end up signing with a big Sydney club.

2) We front load the contract of one of our current players for 2016. They take the money, only to end up leaving the club mid contract in the 2017 preseason.

 

[slotmachine]

I like option 2. Brock Lamb can sign with another club on the 1st of November, the storm will probably steal him to replace Cronk.

 

[Caped Crusader]

Not sure what you're all crying about.

How much would Tapine have been on this year? 120K?

Did you think we were gonna clear up $300K this year by releasing him?

It looks pretty proportional to me.

80K at this point of the year would make a difference if we are trying to sign someone for 2016 which we apparently are so I'll take that money and get rid of the headache thanks.

Probably better than the alternative of having a whinging 2nd grader bringing the club down all year and paying him for the right to do so.

Not to mention the club has already been dragged through the mud for sticking it's heels in as long as it has til now. I am actually happy with how much they stuck in.

Pretty much my views on it too

We were in a lose lose situation really

The best we hoped for was to ship him somewhere else for the year and get a player trade. We tried and it didnt eventuate

If we didnt release him now, we'd have a malcontent in the club potentially spreading negativity amongst the ranks and a certain continued media shit storm

Sucks but its $80K that couls mean the difference between getting someone else or not before June 30

 

[gorilla with a shotgun]

:lol: If Newcastle have all these young great promising fowards coming out their arse (Mataora, seriously? :lol what's the fuss over? He's not that good anymore now that he isn't in Blue and Red, right? Overated perhaps, never would have made it anyway...

FWIW most backrowers who move up front aren't that effective, it's just to fill a team's need. Creagh, Thaiday, Myles..