What ? Ponga and Walsh are on 1.4 and 1.2 already . Teddy is on 1.2 , and who knows with TPAs . The hammer is on 1m. The young fullback Kini at the titans is on 1million . Papenhuyzen 1mil not including TPAs. Turbo 1.2m although he’s no longer a fullback . Drinkwater re upped his contract when he was in talks for origin so I’d love to know how much he’s really on . In fact I think it will be easier to find a club not paying thier fullback 900k minimum.
Teams like Canberra and us , the only reason we arnt is we are paying them their first real contract in Kaeo Weekes and Bula , and no one saw this Weekes coming . Even Ricky can’t say that . He was third choice at manly . . So who’s left ? Tracey, Gutho(on 750k so not far off and he’s 32) , CNK,( meh fullback . Not my cup of tea) , Edward’s (he’s on 900k) Iongi (rookie ) … lattrell well he’s Clearly on a mil , Kennedy and that’s about it … so by my count I have 5 players not on a mil as thier teams fullback / paid fullback money but had a positional change like Mitchell and Turbo .
In fact some teams like titans are paying thier 14 . 800k because they’re ll the one who was supposed to be the fullback in players like Brunson , or we did once upon a time with Mbye .
My point is people need to recalibrate to a world where the salary is 12m . Paying your spine 4mil will be the norm . Some teams will do it better than most . The new 4 mil will actually 5 or 6 mil . Some teams will stack thier spine with the Aus. spine , and pay journeymen to fill out thier front row . Basically the storm modus operende . They’d be paying thier spine close to 6m I reckon including TPAs.
