RE: Confirmed: Matterson released from Wests Tigers.
Some good quotes/thoughts below from Messrs Brown and Tallis re Matterson situation.
Regardless to what level Matterson reaches he will forever be known for his unethical behaviour whilst at the Tigers;
“Ex-Newcastle coach Nathan Brown reckons clubs can’t win and there is no such thing as a good deal in rugby league anymore.
Brown argues that if a club signs a player for a little less than he could have commanded elsewhere and the player exceeds expectation, the player’s hand is soon out for more money.
But if you sign a player on big money and the player doesn’t aim up, the club is left to offload him and pay a fair whack of his wage to play at a rival club.
Brown went through it at the Knights and the Tigers are experiencing it with Ryan Matterson, who wants out of the club.
Brown has no doubt player agents hold too much power.
“A player goes to a club on what at that time is a great deal – well over-exceeds what his value is - and person X comes and taps him on the shoulder and says ‘I can get you $650,000 off this club’ and then it becomes a management nightmare for the coach,” he told Triple M.
“As an old bloke said to me recently, the game is morally bankrupt. There are no morals in the game at all.
“It’s just a nasty world at the moment, the business side of it.”
Gorden Tallis, a former teammate of Brown’s at St George, famously sat out the 1996 season at the Dragons - without pay - over a contract dispute.
He believes Matterson would soon change his attitude if offered the same arrangement.
“Show some spine. Make him sit on the sideline,” Tallis said.
“If you don’t like it here then sit it out. Clubs should say ‘we are standing behind the coach, the jersey, the club’.”
“It’s time the game takes a stand and showed some spine.”
Tallis believes all 16 clubs should come together on the issue and refuse to sign players looking to get out of contracts to chase big dollars elsewhere.
He said: “As soon as they get a better offer they walk out.
“We need clubs to get some power back and say ‘we’re not going to make a play for him’.
“Let him sit out a year.”
posted in Contracts