Be interesting to see how they go about it.
If it is deemed that Watmough will never play again, they only have to pay 25% of his contract (in real terms) and get a (part) salary cap exemption. So declaring him medically unfit does relieve that pressure, however if Choc wants to contest he is fit, than he gets the remaining 2 years pay, so he will try and get back, even for a single lower grade game (very similar to Yow Yeh).
If they flick one highly paid player, that can solve it in 1 hit. The anwser would be Scott, someone would pay full price, they cant meke the finals this year anyway and next year was probably his last, least long term pain, and the problem is solved.
The other option is releasing a number of mid range players, but every time they do that another player enter the top 25, so dropping a $100k player only frees up $20k of space assuming the replacement is on league minimum. So they have to drop 5-8 players if that is there strategy.
Left field option is basically say stuff them, not clear the books for this year, and play for no points, and work to fix it for next year and beyond.
I'd say letting Norman go early might be the best of a bunch of bad options - he's probably gone at the end of this year anyway now they aren't going to be able to cheat on the cap in 2017, and realistically the finals are probably gone this year. I just can't see Parra playing for no points for more than a game or two - they'll have to get this money cleared in the next couple of weeks. The issue of course is that if Norman goes they won't have any halves at all given the Foran situation but, again, if they're punting 2016 at least this way they will go into 2017 with more or less the squad they ought to have expected.
I also just read that even if Watmough retires now Parra will only be able to pro-rate the cap adjustment. I'm not sure exactly how that works but if it's as simple as proportion of the season played that means they're stuck with a third of the $700,000 for the amount of the season Watmough's been on the roster - so a saving of $470,000\. Add in the minimum salary player they'll have to add to the squad and they'll still need to find roughly $200,000 reduction for this season…
It was rumoured Scott signed for as little as 350k, so given we're already over a third of the way through the year they really woudn't free up much space with him.
Norman to the Roosters/Dragons/Titans seems like the best bet to me. Least disruption and with Foran back in say a month they'd still have a dominant half to guide the team around and some kid gets a chance in the halves in the meantime.
Will be a lot of shuffling going on over the next few weeks
I just assumed Scott was on big coin, I havent really heard, if he is not, well that is not the answer.
If they flick Normon, Im not sure who they bring into the halves, the 2 kids that were promising, (Matterson and Docker Clay) have been moved on, just trying to think who plays NYC and NSW cup and cant for life of me recall.
Watmough is under no obligation to retire, and the eels can medically retire him, only 25% counts,interesting to see what arrangement they come to on that one.
WOnder if the NRL will take their spoons off them!
