Confirmed: Matterson released from Wests Tigers.

[Furious1]

Spoke to someone from a Sydney club who was in the hunt for Matto. At this point their interest has waned as they don’t want that sort of attitude in their club. Of course anything can happen in the NRL but I wonder how many others are having second thoughts.

 

[hsvjones]

@Furious1 It would make me have 2nd thoughts also... If other players are turning on him this will not turn out good for him...
I really don't care either but hope we can make a trade that will help us and not just give him away..

 

[Tim Sheens]

Yeah, couldn't believe my eyes when reading some comments stating that we need to cut Chris and or even Benji to accommodate the whims of Matterson to keep him.

For the reported $350k next year (425 in 2021), I would definitely be playing the you're staying unless we get a good deal card for 2020 and he can either apologise to his teammates or mope around.

The guy is getting more than the average top squad player and signed up for probably 200% more than he was getting at the chooks last year, so has little basis to complain money wise. If there are other genuine reasons for Ryan to be unhappy, then they must be adequately addressed and a small upgrade arranged.


You would not save much by dropping Chris as he only wants $150K next year, and you have to replace him with someone else on minimum contract $100K.

Yeah, but some can't see the basic math.

 

[tigerap]

I think the question mark on the title of this post should be replaced with !!

 

[tigerap]

@Furious1 nrl clubs are cut throat, they will do anything to get ahead...don’t believe what your mate told you...smoke screen

 

[jirskyr]

All clubs lose players, but most of them get good or better ones in return.

That literally, mathematically cannot be true. If there is a pool of players moving around every season, every club except Wests Tigers cannot be signing good or better players. It's not an arms race, you can't just keep signing better and better and better footballers. It's impossible even without the salary cap taken into account.

In other words, if 15 clubs signed equal or better players last year, where did they get those players from? They got them from other clubs. You can't all be signing better footballers and nobody is losing better footballers, it doesn't work; the equation has to balance. It would be like only Tigers lose football matches and every other team doesn't. At most, half of the clubs are improving in a given position and half are not.

That is, unless you are proposing that Tigers are the only club in the comp that loses good players and signs up the rejects, but everyone else swaps equal-value players. Which is clearly not true.

 

[jirskyr]

Why would any star want to come to the tigers, titans, Newcastle etc

What are you talking about, Newcastle are literally the poster-boy for the despondent Tigers fans that wish we bought better players. Klemmer, Pearce, Connor Watson, Ponga, Wallace, Jai Arrow, Peachey etc. just in the last few seasons.

The answer is money. Roosters and Storm have legitimately been the only stable successful clubs of the past decade or so, but even so, Roosters still have a very strong record of missing finals during the NRL era. Everyone else flips in and out. Nobody stays at the bottom forever, though Knights and Titans have been there a fair amount lately, and Tigers hover around middle.

They come for money, the real point is that unsuccessful clubs have to gamble where to spend that money. E.g. Knights obviously made a very good decision with Ponga, and yet that hasn't put them into finals frame yet.

 

[steve-o]

The only good players going to clubs like the Titans and Knights are ones that are either:
(1) looking for more opportunity e.g.
Arrow, Wallace, Taylor from the Broncos
Peachey and Cartwright from the Panthers
Watson from the Roosters
Ponga from the Cowboys
(2) looking for a last contract payday
Eg Guerra and Glasby
Or (3) have a connection to the area
Eg Ramien and Proctor

Klemmer is the notable exception who wanted to get out of Sydney due to family issues.
It’s fair to say that money was also a big part of the Ponga signing because the Cowboys weren’t willing to pay for an unproven player. However in my opinion, Newcastle will struggle to retain him now that he’s proven himself as a superstar.

Also, forget about comparing clubs in the NRL era... the landscape has changed dramatically in the last 5-10 years. Eg the roosters were indeed in and out of the finals a lot in the latter half of the 2000s, but they’ve been in the top 4 six out of the last 7 times (this is going off memory, so feel free to fact check).

My point is, let’s not pretend all 16 clubs are created equally. Clubs like the Titans, Newcastle, and probably the Cowboys in a post-Thurston era, are going to struggle to maintain the same consistency as some of the big market clubs. The Raiders are in a similar boat but have made a smart strategic decision to recruit some of the top players from England. The Raiders are also in a sound financial position of the field.

As for what this means for the Tigers... I truly believe we are a sleeping giant, we just need to start winning! It’s a continuous feedback cycle... from a player’s perspective, success on the field brings individual recognition, which leads to rep opportunities, bonuses, higher contracts etc, which then in turn makes a club a desirable place for free agents.

 

[Tigerdave]

He's only able to command more money because he got more game time.....................like he was offered when he signed. He's where he's at due to the Tigers and coaching staff and to thank everyone for this opportunity, he's doing what he's doing and clearly a couple of clubs have a couple of dump trucks full of cash waiting to deliver to his place.

Pretty over stuff like this and I think that feeling is growing among a lot of fans of the game and even people directly involved.

They need to do something with player managers, it's all helping to kill the game.

 

[Spacecub]

Some good quotes/thoughts below from Messrs Brown and Tallis re Matterson situation.
Regardless to what level Matterson reaches he will forever be known for his unethical behaviour whilst at the Tigers;

“Ex-Newcastle coach Nathan Brown reckons clubs can’t win and there is no such thing as a good deal in rugby league anymore.
Brown argues that if a club signs a player for a little less than he could have commanded elsewhere and the player exceeds expectation, the player’s hand is soon out for more money.
But if you sign a player on big money and the player doesn’t aim up, the club is left to offload him and pay a fair whack of his wage to play at a rival club.
Brown went through it at the Knights and the Tigers are experiencing it with Ryan Matterson, who wants out of the club.
Brown has no doubt player agents hold too much power.
“A player goes to a club on what at that time is a great deal – well over-exceeds what his value is - and person X comes and taps him on the shoulder and says ‘I can get you $650,000 off this club’ and then it becomes a management nightmare for the coach,” he told Triple M.
“As an old bloke said to me recently, the game is morally bankrupt. There are no morals in the game at all.
“It’s just a nasty world at the moment, the business side of it.”
Gorden Tallis, a former teammate of Brown’s at St George, famously sat out the 1996 season at the Dragons - without pay - over a contract dispute.
He believes Matterson would soon change his attitude if offered the same arrangement.
“Show some spine. Make him sit on the sideline,” Tallis said.
“If you don’t like it here then sit it out. Clubs should say ‘we are standing behind the coach, the jersey, the club’.”
“It’s time the game takes a stand and showed some spine.”
Tallis believes all 16 clubs should come together on the issue and refuse to sign players looking to get out of contracts to chase big dollars elsewhere.
He said: “As soon as they get a better offer they walk out.
“We need clubs to get some power back and say ‘we’re not going to make a play for him’.
“Let him sit out a year.”

Both of them made a lot of sense yesterday, especially brownie, always like hearing what he has to say....he doesn't bullshit, says it how it is

 

[Spud_Murphy]

All clubs lose players, but most of them get good or better ones in return.

That literally, mathematically cannot be true. If there is a pool of players moving around every season, every club except Wests Tigers cannot be signing good or better players. It's not an arms race, you can't just keep signing better and better and better footballers. It's impossible even without the salary cap taken into account.

In other words, if 15 clubs signed equal or better players last year, where did they get those players from? They got them from other clubs. You can't all be signing better footballers and nobody is losing better footballers, it doesn't work; the equation has to balance. It would be like only Tigers lose football matches and every other team doesn't. At most, half of the clubs are improving in a given position and half are not.

That is, unless you are proposing that Tigers are the only club in the comp that loses good players and signs up the rejects, but everyone else swaps equal-value players. Which is clearly not true.

I think you missed the word ‘most’ in that sentence, I didn’t say all. And I was just agreeing with the poster who I was quoting who said the exact same thing, but for some reason you only honed in on my comment.

 

[Telltails]

Some good quotes/thoughts below from Messrs Brown and Tallis re Matterson situation.
Regardless to what level Matterson reaches he will forever be known for his unethical behaviour whilst at the Tigers;

“Ex-Newcastle coach Nathan Brown reckons clubs can’t win and there is no such thing as a good deal in rugby league anymore.
Brown argues that if a club signs a player for a little less than he could have commanded elsewhere and the player exceeds expectation, the player’s hand is soon out for more money.
But if you sign a player on big money and the player doesn’t aim up, the club is left to offload him and pay a fair whack of his wage to play at a rival club.
Brown went through it at the Knights and the Tigers are experiencing it with Ryan Matterson, who wants out of the club.
Brown has no doubt player agents hold too much power.
“A player goes to a club on what at that time is a great deal – well over-exceeds what his value is - and person X comes and taps him on the shoulder and says ‘I can get you $650,000 off this club’ and then it becomes a management nightmare for the coach,” he told Triple M.
“As an old bloke said to me recently, the game is morally bankrupt. There are no morals in the game at all.
“It’s just a nasty world at the moment, the business side of it.”
Gorden Tallis, a former teammate of Brown’s at St George, famously sat out the 1996 season at the Dragons - without pay - over a contract dispute.
He believes Matterson would soon change his attitude if offered the same arrangement.
“Show some spine. Make him sit on the sideline,” Tallis said.
“If you don’t like it here then sit it out. Clubs should say ‘we are standing behind the coach, the jersey, the club’.”
“It’s time the game takes a stand and showed some spine.”
Tallis believes all 16 clubs should come together on the issue and refuse to sign players looking to get out of contracts to chase big dollars elsewhere.
He said: “As soon as they get a better offer they walk out.
“We need clubs to get some power back and say ‘we’re not going to make a play for him’.
“Let him sit out a year.”

"The game is morally bankrupt" - yep player managers take a bow.

 

[Cultured_Bogan]

@pawsandclaws1 as well as RCG and 750k for gutho . Add to that Sivo getting homesick in the off-season to the tune of 500k . And Blake would be on a quid as well .
Seriously though , people had Arthur as first coach fired this year , now all of a sudden after 1 good year they’re on the up and up . I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again , if Moses is who your hopes and dreams are hanging on then , you are in for a long , cold punch of reality to the face .
I can only imagine his thought process this time last year was like , “the eels ... haha they’re crap “.
Now all of a sudden he’s got that depression that is only cured by an eels jersey and 800k .

Moses showed what he had to offer on the weekend against a quality side. It's one thing to cripple bash Brisbane who were never going to do anything in the finals to actually doing something against one of the sides that will likely take the whole thing out.

I know we've all raged about it but apart from last year where the 8 was spread out over 2 comp points it is rarely the case and there is a glaring discrepancy in performance between the teams that finish in the top 4 versus the teams below them. They really should look at having a 6 team finals comp as whoever finished 7th and 8th did not deserve to be there (I'd be saying the same for us,) and were fodder for the other teams.

 

[trentrunciman]

@pawsandclaws1 as well as RCG and 750k for gutho . Add to that Sivo getting homesick in the off-season to the tune of 500k . And Blake would be on a quid as well .
Seriously though , people had Arthur as first coach fired this year , now all of a sudden after 1 good year they’re on the up and up . I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again , if Moses is who your hopes and dreams are hanging on then , you are in for a long , cold punch of reality to the face .
I can only imagine his thought process this time last year was like , “the eels ... haha they’re crap “.
Now all of a sudden he’s got that depression that is only cured by an eels jersey and 800k .

Moses showed what he had to offer on the weekend against a quality side. It's one thing to cripple bash Brisbane who were never going to do anything in the finals to actually doing something against one of the sides that will likely take the whole thing out.

I know we've all raged about it but apart from last year where the 8 was spread out over 2 comp points it is rarely the case and there is a glaring discrepancy in performance between the teams that finish in the top 4 versus the teams below them. They really should look at having a 6 team finals comp as whoever finished 7th and 8th did not deserve to be there (I'd be saying the same for us,) and were fodder for the other teams.

we can be salty for as long as we want. But im of the firm belief we should of kept moses and let brooksy go. But we had no choice.

Most impartial fans generally agree. RE the weekend no half in the comp would of played well behind a pack that was easily dominated. He goes as his forwards go.

Simply put Mitchell has always been the more dynamic/complete footy player- right from his days as a rhino and sg ball to u 20s covering FB; wing; halfback and 5/8th. Brooksy has always been the more 'stable' player. would be nice if the nrl had a system for lower teams like the tigers to retain their juniors...

 

[GNR4LIFE]

@pawsandclaws1 as well as RCG and 750k for gutho . Add to that Sivo getting homesick in the off-season to the tune of 500k . And Blake would be on a quid as well .
Seriously though , people had Arthur as first coach fired this year , now all of a sudden after 1 good year they’re on the up and up . I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again , if Moses is who your hopes and dreams are hanging on then , you are in for a long , cold punch of reality to the face .
I can only imagine his thought process this time last year was like , “the eels ... haha they’re crap “.
Now all of a sudden he’s got that depression that is only cured by an eels jersey and 800k .

Moses showed what he had to offer on the weekend against a quality side. It's one thing to cripple bash Brisbane who were never going to do anything in the finals to actually doing something against one of the sides that will likely take the whole thing out.

I know we've all raged about it but apart from last year where the 8 was spread out over 2 comp points it is rarely the case and there is a glaring discrepancy in performance between the teams that finish in the top 4 versus the teams below them. They really should look at having a 6 team finals comp as whoever finished 7th and 8th did not deserve to be there (I'd be saying the same for us,) and were fodder for the other teams.

we can be salty for as long as we want. But im of the firm belief we should of kept moses and let brooksy go. But we had no choice.

Most impartial fans generally agree. RE the weekend no half in the comp would of played well behind a pack that was easily dominated. He goes as his forwards go.

Simply put Mitchell has always been the more dynamic/complete footy player- right from his days as a rhino and sg ball to u 20s covering FB; wing; halfback and 5/8th. Brooksy has always been the more 'stable' player. would be nice if the nrl had a system for lower teams like the tigers to retain their juniors...

Yeah, its the forwards fault he fell off tackles, threw the ball away two different times in the opposition 20, threw another pass that Ferguson almost had to catch from the first row, and stuck his foot out needlessly that lead to Munster's try. The pack being dominated must have caused all of that.

 

[Tcat]

Stay strong WTs management. We aren't going to be much for a few years anyway. Screw Matterson, make him play reserve grade for 2 years and he can miss his window at rep footy. I'm sick of players and other clubs taking the piss out of us. We need to send the message that we won't be screwed around with and if Matterson wants a "more professional club" make him learn a lesson in professionalism for 2 more years in 2nd grade.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

Stay strong WTs management. We aren't going to be much for a few years anyway. Screw Matterson, make him play reserve grade for 2 years and he can miss his window at rep footy. I'm sick of players and other clubs taking the piss out of us. We need to send the message that we won't be screwed around with and if Matterson wants a "more professional club" make him learn a lesson in professionalism for 2 more years in 2nd grade.

You got buckleys and none of thinking we'll play him in CC. Zero chance.

 

[trentrunciman]

@pawsandclaws1 as well as RCG and 750k for gutho . Add to that Sivo getting homesick in the off-season to the tune of 500k . And Blake would be on a quid as well .
Seriously though , people had Arthur as first coach fired this year , now all of a sudden after 1 good year they’re on the up and up . I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again , if Moses is who your hopes and dreams are hanging on then , you are in for a long , cold punch of reality to the face .
I can only imagine his thought process this time last year was like , “the eels ... haha they’re crap “.
Now all of a sudden he’s got that depression that is only cured by an eels jersey and 800k .

Moses showed what he had to offer on the weekend against a quality side. It's one thing to cripple bash Brisbane who were never going to do anything in the finals to actually doing something against one of the sides that will likely take the whole thing out.

I know we've all raged about it but apart from last year where the 8 was spread out over 2 comp points it is rarely the case and there is a glaring discrepancy in performance between the teams that finish in the top 4 versus the teams below them. They really should look at having a 6 team finals comp as whoever finished 7th and 8th did not deserve to be there (I'd be saying the same for us,) and were fodder for the other teams.

we can be salty for as long as we want. But im of the firm belief we should of kept moses and let brooksy go. But we had no choice.

Most impartial fans generally agree. RE the weekend no half in the comp would of played well behind a pack that was easily dominated. He goes as his forwards go.

Simply put Mitchell has always been the more dynamic/complete footy player- right from his days as a rhino and sg ball to u 20s covering FB; wing; halfback and 5/8th. Brooksy has always been the more 'stable' player. would be nice if the nrl had a system for lower teams like the tigers to retain their juniors...

Yeah, its the forwards fault he fell off tackles, threw the ball away two different times in the opposition 20, threw another pass that Ferguson almost had to catch from the first row, and stuck his foot out needlessly that lead to Munster's try. The pack being dominated must have caused all of that.

so salty man...

 

[GNR4LIFE]

@pawsandclaws1 as well as RCG and 750k for gutho . Add to that Sivo getting homesick in the off-season to the tune of 500k . And Blake would be on a quid as well .
Seriously though , people had Arthur as first coach fired this year , now all of a sudden after 1 good year they’re on the up and up . I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again , if Moses is who your hopes and dreams are hanging on then , you are in for a long , cold punch of reality to the face .
I can only imagine his thought process this time last year was like , “the eels ... haha they’re crap “.
Now all of a sudden he’s got that depression that is only cured by an eels jersey and 800k .

Moses showed what he had to offer on the weekend against a quality side. It's one thing to cripple bash Brisbane who were never going to do anything in the finals to actually doing something against one of the sides that will likely take the whole thing out.

I know we've all raged about it but apart from last year where the 8 was spread out over 2 comp points it is rarely the case and there is a glaring discrepancy in performance between the teams that finish in the top 4 versus the teams below them. They really should look at having a 6 team finals comp as whoever finished 7th and 8th did not deserve to be there (I'd be saying the same for us,) and were fodder for the other teams.

we can be salty for as long as we want. But im of the firm belief we should of kept moses and let brooksy go. But we had no choice.

Most impartial fans generally agree. RE the weekend no half in the comp would of played well behind a pack that was easily dominated. He goes as his forwards go.

Simply put Mitchell has always been the more dynamic/complete footy player- right from his days as a rhino and sg ball to u 20s covering FB; wing; halfback and 5/8th. Brooksy has always been the more 'stable' player. would be nice if the nrl had a system for lower teams like the tigers to retain their juniors...

Yeah, its the forwards fault he fell off tackles, threw the ball away two different times in the opposition 20, threw another pass that Ferguson almost had to catch from the first row, and stuck his foot out needlessly that lead to Munster's try. The pack being dominated must have caused all of that.

so salty man...

You're struggling if that is your best retort.

 

[Elderslie_Tiger]

Stay strong WTs management. We aren't going to be much for a few years anyway. Screw Matterson, make him play reserve grade for 2 years and he can miss his window at rep footy. I'm sick of players and other clubs taking the piss out of us. We need to send the message that we won't be screwed around with and if Matterson wants a "more professional club" make him learn a lesson in professionalism for 2 more years in 2nd grade.

You got buckleys and none of thinking we'll play him in CC. Zero chance.

He's a waste of space both as a human and our salary cap let him go.
Its intersesting all the young unheard of guys Madge is signing (dare I say it sounds like a plan)