@tiga4eva said in [Josh Addo Carr Contract Discussion](/post/1100660) said:
I don't know how the Club can explain to members we had between $1.5 and $1.7m available to spend, and are only able to promote development players. No amount of spin could justify that,given the release of Marsters and Matterson. I'm still praying for something favourable
Pretty easy to explain actually.
Firstly we've signed 2 players - Big Lucy and Stefano, obv the latter for 2021 at this stage.
Marsters released 10/Oct/19
Matterson released 31/Oct/19
Matulino medically retired 31/Oct/19
The rep season finished on 16/Nov/19, with the Kangaroos playing their last test on 02/Nov/19.
That whole period, up to today 13/Jan/20, is 10.57 weeks. Leaving in the rep season but accounting for at least the 2 weeks of Christmas and NY that's basically 8 weeks. Taking out the rep season, i.e. your window for test match players, you only get 6 weeks.
You therefore are having to line up players who are willing and able to move clubs in a 6-8 week period, because the Tigers couldn't guarantee this cap space would be available - Marsters had to be taken on, Mats had to be rubber-stamped and Matterson they did not want to lose.
I said this before, since 01/Nov/19 only 16 players have joined new NRL clubs for 2020:
Matterson (3 years)
Enari Tuala (1 year)
Isaac Luke (1 year)
Val Holmes (6 years)
Kurt Capewell (2 years)
Brodie Croft (3 years)
Merrin (2 years)
Big Lucy (3 years)
Ryley Jacks (1 year)
Cameron King (1 year)
Zane Tetevano (2 years)
Gehamat Shibasaki (3 years)
Brock Lamb (2 years development)
Brayden Wiliame (2 years)
Jonus Pearson (2 years)
Tyrell Fuimaono (2 years)
Assuming you add Latrell this month, you honestly have 4 "bigger-name" players taking on new deals for 2020 - Latrell, Croft, Holmes and Matterson. Only 2 of those are legitimate top-tier footballers.
The rest of the signatures are middle-ground to bit-player at most.
Looking specifically at the details - Croft was a direct trade Storm to Broncos, Holmes only ever spoke with Sharks and Cowboys (according to accounts), Latrell we were right in the mix for and Matterson we had to lose.
I really don't know what you expect the club to do, it's like the cap space is burning a hole in your pocket. The point has already been made, last time we had a chunk of cap space available (arguably every time we've had a chunk of space available, casting back to 2000) we've spent it very poorly.
It has been 8 WEEKS. 8 weeks including Christmas. We went hard for Latrell, reportedly made an offer for Arrow and signed two other footballers in that period. Latrell wants to be at Souths and so does Arrow. Nobody else signed those players, just Souths.
Just because there's cap space you don't have to rush out to spend it, and it's unrealistic to expect a raft of signings in the offseason. Sometimes the offseason has horse trade, sometimes it doesn't, depending on who is available, what pieces are being shuffled around and what players/clubs are actually willing to talk terms for 2021.
Then why did we release players we had a right to keep including arguably our best player from 2019?
Releasing players without suitable replacements lined up shows a lack of planning!
Simples Cochise - Matterson did not want to be here, a lot of our players did not want him here. Training was too hard for him, he didn't like it. Lastly he was so disgruntled that he would have created a very toxic environment going into the 2020 season.
You're off your rocker if you want to keep him under those circumstances.
Masters wasn't keen to stay either - pathetic form in 2019 (even taking into account injuries) and the same coach had him for The Tigers and NZ, but was still quite happy for him to go. I'm ok with that decision.
Better off without either of them I think, even if we didn't replace them. However I feel Big Lucy will end up a better forward than Matterson in the years to come.
Keeping Masters for depth would have been better than how this played out!
Geez, some people must not watch games. Marsters for 450k, given his lack of attack, defence and goal kicking was a very poor player for us. He is very easily replacable. He wouldn't have even got a start if he was still at the club next season. Why pay your backup that much? Especially when other backups like Jennings and Nof are also on that much. We have to stop overpaying crap players.
So instead we sit here with $450k unspent, we saved nothing by releasing Masters because we haven't used his money!