Of our current squad of 30 we have Farah, Fonua and Rochow all ending their contracts, so that takes us to 27 and maybe we’ve saved $700k. Only others ending at the end of 2019 are Benji and Chris Lawrence, and I’m presuming they both go around again
Of those that end in 2020 that I’m guessing we’d be happy to allow to go elsewhere, it’s 3-5 depending on your view with ET, Huth, Jennings, Matulino and McQueen. They’ve got contracts and presumably are hard to shift. Let’s assume Mats retires and we offload 1 other of them, so down to 25 and maybe another $800k saved
That leaves us with Packer and Reynolds, best part of $1.3m per year between them. Let’s say we offload and pay half which is probably our best outcome, so save another, let’s call it $600k
We’re now at a squad of 23 and have around $2.1 million up our sleeve although presumably recent upgrades on Aloiai, Mikaele, Liddle and even Thompson cost us something, so let’s say we have $1.8m to go shopping with
We upgrade the 3 development players, I don’t know, maybe $300k, so $1.5m to fill 4 spots which I’d suggest are at least one centre, one prop and a half come fullback
Who would you look for? Let’s try to work within the $1.5m, I see lots of grab so and so but work with the $1.5m and accept we probably have to pay slight overs
If you go AJ Brimson and Jesse Ramien, surely that burns through at least a million, so $500k left for a prop and something else and props don’t seem cheap, so probably not doable
Look forward to seeing the views from the forum on how to spend our phantom $1.5 million
