Watching the parra/dragons game yest and before the kickoff the commentators were saying that benji said that " last year he was UNMOTIVATED & UNFIT "
Its a bit of a slap in the face for the Tigers club, and if you read between the lines you can make the following assumptions;
1\. Benji asked for a 5 year contract knowing the Tigers would say no or offer substantially less.
2\. Benji knew that this would be his opp to walk away from the club as they could not agree to extended terms.
3\. Benji's passion at the Tigers was gone and he wanted to leave pretty much from the beginning of the season. Maybe due to Sheens & Beau Ryans exit. It wasn't diff to see from his on field performances that he wasn't that interested.
4\. He claimed when he signed with Rugby, it wasn't for the money…which was financially true and based on the above I now see he wanted "out from the tigers" at almost any cost/price.
Moving forward 8 months and yest performance was really a shell of the former great player he was. No doubt if he puts the work in he will improve and his combinations will improve with the drag players. But compare the following;
1\. Tigers offered Benji a 3 year contract for $2.4M approx.
2\. Signed with Dragons for 2.5 years for $1.1M approx.
Thats a lot of moolah to drop and apart from reflecting badly for Benji, I have to question his player manager....isn't the role of a manager to get his client the best deal ??? Its like bizzaro world negotiations......holding out for less money. In that respect I really have to thank Benji for knocking back our offer and to the Dragons for giving us an extra $200k for the privilege.
Finally, back to the Tigers, how good is it knowing that we did not waste $2.4M on a player who was "UNMOTIVATED" to be at the Tigers and instead probably now have the money to sign our brightest future players at the club. The nightmare could have been keeping Benji and losing brooksy, moses, siro & Teddy.
Makes me shudder just thinking about it.
Its a bit of a slap in the face for the Tigers club, and if you read between the lines you can make the following assumptions;
1\. Benji asked for a 5 year contract knowing the Tigers would say no or offer substantially less.
2\. Benji knew that this would be his opp to walk away from the club as they could not agree to extended terms.
3\. Benji's passion at the Tigers was gone and he wanted to leave pretty much from the beginning of the season. Maybe due to Sheens & Beau Ryans exit. It wasn't diff to see from his on field performances that he wasn't that interested.
4\. He claimed when he signed with Rugby, it wasn't for the money…which was financially true and based on the above I now see he wanted "out from the tigers" at almost any cost/price.
Moving forward 8 months and yest performance was really a shell of the former great player he was. No doubt if he puts the work in he will improve and his combinations will improve with the drag players. But compare the following;
1\. Tigers offered Benji a 3 year contract for $2.4M approx.
2\. Signed with Dragons for 2.5 years for $1.1M approx.
Thats a lot of moolah to drop and apart from reflecting badly for Benji, I have to question his player manager....isn't the role of a manager to get his client the best deal ??? Its like bizzaro world negotiations......holding out for less money. In that respect I really have to thank Benji for knocking back our offer and to the Dragons for giving us an extra $200k for the privilege.
Finally, back to the Tigers, how good is it knowing that we did not waste $2.4M on a player who was "UNMOTIVATED" to be at the Tigers and instead probably now have the money to sign our brightest future players at the club. The nightmare could have been keeping Benji and losing brooksy, moses, siro & Teddy.
Makes me shudder just thinking about it.