‘Tough decisions need to be made’: Why Brooks’ salary sent Hastings to the Knights
November 16, 2022 — 11.44am
If not for Luke Brooks’ big salary, he would have been unveiled as Kalyn Ponga’s new sidekick at the Knights instead of now ex-Tigers teammate Jackson Hastings.
So fickle is the NRL player market, Newcastle spent almost 12 months trying to prise Brooks out of the only home he knew – and barely needed 12 days to land Hastings
Tim Sheens’ three-into-two scenario finally has a solution, but it wasn’t the one Newcastle – and perhaps the Tigers – had originally envisaged.
Having blocked Newcastle’s advances last summer and ignored Andrew Johns’ public plea to Brooks, the Tigers finally gave their long-time No.7 permission to negotiate with the Knights at the end of this season.
The impediment was Brooks’ wage for 2023, which is set to nudge past $1 million.
Newcastle couldn’t strike an agreement that would satisfy all parties, especially with the uncertainty surrounding the salary cap due to protracted collective bargaining agreement negotiations.
Jackson Hastings has been granted a release from the Tigers to join the Knights.Credit:Getty
It was then that they turned their attention to Hastings – on considerably less money than Brooks and also off-contract at the end of 2023.
The phone call caught the Tigers by surprise. But once they thought about the ramifications, they knew it made sense, and on Wednesday the Knights confirmed the biggest move of the off-season to date with Hastings’ three-year deal in Newcastle.
As Tigers chief executive Justin Pascoe said in a statement on Wednesday, “tough decisions need to be made” to lift the club out of the NRL cellar.
Sheens already had Brooks, Hastings and Adam Doueihi under contract for next year, and knew all three wanted to play in the halves. Hastings shaped as the odd one out, with Sheens telling him he wanted him to play at lock.
David Klemmer will join the Tigers after cutting short his stay at the Knights.Credit:Getty
For a controlling playmaker such as Hastings, who spent most of the year
touching the ball more than any other half, that was always going to be hard to swallow.
But perhaps it’s a little window into the Sheens and Benji Marshall era, which promises expansive attack that might not need such a dominant ball distributor.
Even allowing for his one-year stay, Hastings had been a popular figure with Tigers fans and the decision to let him go will divide opinion.
The former Man of Steel winner paid for his own flights to Queensland to help the team for a game while he was injured and spoke glowingly about what the club meant to him giving him a chance to resurrect his NRL career.
His loyalty to former coach Michael Maguire, sacked midway through the season, was also well known. Many will consider his exit, instead of Brooks, to be a recruiting blunder.
But behind closed doors, Hastings’ intense personality had also ruffled feathers within the organisation. The Tigers had already resolved Hastings was unlikely to be offered a new deal beyond 2023.
While Brooks’ bounty was enough to stop his move to Newcastle, the final year of Klemmer’s Knights deal wasn’t enough to perturb the Tigers. While it might be pitched as a swap deal, the Tigers were independently negotiating with Klemmer before the Hastings release was even an option.
Klemmer, a former Australia and NSW prop, will reunite with Sheens at Concord on a three-year deal, which includes a mutual option for a fourth.
Suddenly, the Tigers are starting to possess the mongrel in their forward pack they’ve lacked for so long.
Klemmer’s signing will not only give them immediate punch with a pack already being beefed up with Api Koroisau and Isaiah Papali’i, it’s also a building block for the future. They want Klemmer to mentor Stefano Utoikamanu, Fonua Pole and a host of promising juniors yet to play at NRL level. Negotiations to bring John Bateman back to the NRL are well advanced.
However, perhaps above anything, it’s an indication to any prospective halfback – hello, Mitchell Moses – the platform they’ll be playing behind.
Sheens and Marshall have been tight-lipped on a potential Moses homecoming, and the Eels’ grand final halfback is desperate to keep his contract talks out of the media. The Tigers sense they’re a chance and Marshall, in particular, won’t die wondering.
But with Klemmer, Koroisau, Papali’i and potentially more on the way, is it a big enough selling point to replace one $1 million halfback in Brooks with his good mate?
The Tigers, and Brooks, might be about to find out.
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