Some people are saying we don’t have room in the salary cap for certain signings. I’m not sure why that would be the case. Below is an example of a balanced use of the club salary cap (obviously, this is just a generalisation for the sake of argument).
2026 SALARY CAP: $11.5M (Plus $300k for Veteran and Developed Player Allowance)
TIER ONE: 2 x $1M players = $2M
TIER TWO: 4 x $700k players = $2.8M
TIER THREE: 6 x $500 players = $3M
TIER FOUR: 12 x $250k players = $3M
TIER FIVE: 6 x $120k players = $0.7M
WT 2026:
TIER ONE: Luai, ???
TIER TWO: Api, Bula, Terrell, ???
TIER THREE: Latu, Samuela, KPP, Taylan, Turuva, Hunt
TIER FOUR: Toa, Doueihi, Twal*, Bird*, Pole, Seyfarth, Skelton, Sione, Jock, Makasini, Mason, ???
TIER FIVE: Geyer, Hope, Kit, Luke, Saukuru, Sukkar
*I’ve used the Veteran and Developed Player Allowance to bring down Twal and Bird to tier 4.
Using this, we could have another Tier One player (Ok, $800k player to accommodate Luai’s $1.2M) AND another Tier Two player PLUS one more Tier Four Player.
This doesn’t take into account payments for players like Sullivan and Bateman but also any contracts that are being subsidised by other teams to us. Also, doesn’t take into account front-loading, which I believe we have done this year, so should have at least $1M to spend on a player next year with some left over to fill our squad to 29 players by March.