I think any club can afford to keep 3 big names, and there is plenty of evidence:
Storm - Slater, Smith, Cronk
Souths - Inglis, Burgess, Reynolds
Sharks - Fifita, Graham, Gallen
Manly - DCE, Stewart, Lyon
Parra - Foran, Jennings, Norman
Dogs - Graham, Morris, Morris
Cowboys - Thurston, Taumalolo, Scott
Roosters - JWH, Pearce, Ferguson
Warriors - Johnson, RTS, Luke
Broncos - Milford, Boyd, Parker
The real issue becomes trying to fit in a fourth big name, the so-called "Big Four". Storm obviously did it by cheating, and if Parra are on the verge of having their own B4, they also apparently have broken the rules to do so. A few sides arguably have a B4 right now.
Regional sides will always have an advantage because some players will take less money to stay with their friends/family.
Right now we have our own big 3 - Tedesco, Woods and Farah. We know Farah is in the twilight of his career and his money will be going to Tedesco, mark that as a given. It is likely that Farah will finish up just as the money for a high-performing Brooks and/or Moses is needed.
2016 is probably the year that Tedesco becomes one of the game's elite players, especially if he plays Origin well this year (and barring injury I cannot see him not getting picked). There is plenty of argument that Tedesco should become Australia's fullback by the end of the year, with Slater injured, Hodges retired and a centre position open for Inglis.
Woods is only 25 and we would expect him to be a representative mainstay well into his next contract and perhaps beyond. I don't see him running out of steam for some years yet.
If both Brooks and Moses get to Teddy's level of consistent excellence, certainly we have a struggle on our hands. It's a big IF of course, but we've invested heavily in Moses and Brooks already, so as a club we already have expectations of them becoming big name players. Given the current weaknesses in NSW halves, it's not hard to picture Tigers trotting out the NSW #1, #6, #7 and #8 within 1-2 years. Heck, in 2016 alone we will probably have #1, #8 and #9 running out for NSW.
So if the best outcome happens and we develop the pre-eminent spine in the comp, there is going to have to be compromise or serious TPAs for this group to remain together. And personally, this is where we should already be positioning Uncle Harry and other well-financed backers to support the club. Forget sponsorship and the rest of that, if he or the Brydens guy are fair-dinkum supporters and not just in it for business-related perks, we ask them to prepare a number of brown paper bags to keep Tedesco, Moses, Brooks, Woods all together for the next 5-7 years.
We are in a tricky situation because Brooks / Moses have not really come on enough during this current contract to fully support the big bucks. Even renewing them now for another 3-4 years carries a fair amount of risk, and we will still be paying a lot of money for future potential. It's also not great having them both on/off contract at the same time, like having to pay rego and insurance on both your cars in the same month.
It's almost the reverse of the Lawrence situation, where he started off cheap then ramped up aggressively over several seasons. Brooks and Moses are already on serious coin, the question is how much more might they deserve and when do they get it? Do we try to keep them at the reported $600K for another season, with increases year-on-year, or triggers based on rep milestones?