haha. you guys actually want the eels to be like the cowboys? thurston has killed the cowboys because he is asking for way too much money. noone is worth what ive heard he is on (600-700k roughly). you could divide that into 3 players that will give the cowboys a chance for a premership. how can they win 1 if they have a 700k HB while every other player is either washed up or not even half decent. one good player doesnt win premerships. thurston will never win 1 aslong as he asks for that much money.
Darren Lockyer earns more than Thurston. And yet they have always had a side full of representative-quality players.
A huge chunk of that $700,000 is in third-party deals and is outside the salary cap anyway, so we can still afford some other quality players.
And the Cowboys will come a helluva lot closer to a premiership than the Eels will. Four Cowboys played Origin this year (Thurston, Tonga, Scott for QLD; O'Donnell for NSW) compared to one Eel.
Every club in the competition will be after Thurston's signature when his current contract expires because he's a quality halfback and a genuine gamebreaker, both extremely rare attributes.
The Dogs think they'll get him, but they won't. The club, coach and players are totally different to 2004. The Warriors think they'll get him because he's half Kiwi and he gave his premiership ring to Steve Price. But he won't go anywhere unless he's going to be captain, least of all New Zealand, where players go to kill their careers.
700K is a LOT to pay for a player, but the reality is most clubs would (and would have to) pay more than that to lure him away from Townsville where he's captain of the team and a god to the people.
So hands off. Besides, that Mortimer kid goes alright anyway.
