Five Million for Five Years

[shasta]

Marquis players attract all the headlines and money, whether they deserve it or not, and whether they're ex-league or not.

Your point SWR was exactly brought up last year with all the Giteau musings. Should the money of Gits be dug back into junior development?

Good point MB.

Rogers and Cross are both Australian Schools reps at Rugby. I think they are both OK. Anyone who's objective about Rogers could not say he was a failure at RU. Injury prone,sure but not a failure. Disregarding all Wendell's off-field problems he was not a failure as a player either.

Lote hasn't had a good few weeks and he's not played to his potential for the Tahs. But he's not alone. The NSW backline has been dysfunctional for years despite plenty of good performances BEFORE the business end of the S12/14.
Reason? Bloody obvious. They STILL haven't got a proven Flyhalf.

Cross will prove to be the best of the lot IMO.

Are any of them worth what they get? Doesn't matter that's the market.

Should they have chased so hard after Lote? Not sure yet but they did the right thing reducing the offer and laying a deadline. Glad it's over.

Would the money be better spent on junior development? Arguable. Is it even from the same pool of money? Probably not.

Do they bring more to the game than they cost? Probably. Remember the man lots of us want back running the business was also in charge when most of the RL players crossed over.

[Fozzy]

I once had a discussion with a friend of mine involved in futures trading who told me they deserved to be paid well as they made money for their company and therefore their salary should not be considered an expense but as an asset.

If Lote's involvement in the game can bring in more than five million in sponsorship and bums on seats, perhaps it not such a bad deal. It does seem like an obscene amount of money though.

Without knowing the details of his contract I am sure there would be something in there about good behaviour and game development.

[shasta]

The ordeal had not helped Tuqiri's on-field performance. "The statistics tell us that he has been affected,"

Ewen McKenzie on the Tuqiri saga.

Does this bloke really need stats to see that? Sheesh!

[frontrow]

What a waste of cash this will turn out to be...He isn't showing his worth at the moment, and i think he won't improve too much in the future...Prove me wrong Lote and i will humbly apologise. but not till then...

[The EnForcer]

Well we'll see if he's worth the dosh but at present he's not showing it and if it's due to the pressures of the contract negotiations then I'm not looking forward to seeing what the pressure of the RWC will do to him.

Sage, I'm afraid Jedi is likely right in saying Lote will scuttle back to League after the world cup. A contract of employment is pretty much not worth the paper it is written. At the end of the day if a player doesn't have it in his heart to play then the club may as well get rid of him.

Incidently, I would love to hear what Ryan Cross is saying about his commitment to Union.

[Sagerian]

That's what I was saying though, the contract really doesn't mean much when you can simply write a letter to get out of it. I think that's why they've back loaded the contract so he gets a larger percentage of that money in his final 3 years.

[The EnForcer]

That's what I was saying though, the contract really doesn't mean much when you can simply write a letter to get out of it. I think that's why they've back loaded the contract so he gets a larger percentage of that money in his final 3 years.

Misundersood sorry....I agree, the backloading is probably the only incentive for him to stay but I don't see it working.

Sage...are you really happy he is hanging around or is it just that you hope he finds his form again. I would have seen it as a good opportunity to move on as this year is now really a building year for you guys.

[The InnFORCEr]

If Lote's involvement in the game can bring in more than five million in sponsorship and bums on seats.

On last weeks performance by Tahs fans it's one thing to get the bums on the seats, but another to keep them there until the final whistle



To answer the question, no I do not believe they got "value for money".

[Darren]

Not sure if you should paint all tahs fans with the same brush - the ones likely to read these posts are no doubt the ones that are also likely to stay behind and support their team to the end....

[Sagerian]

TEF - It was always "really" a building year for us, it was just before the season started, it was a building year with aspirations of making the finals anyway.

I have mixed feelings about it, overall I'm happy he's staying.. i'm happy when anyone decides not to leave the tahs.

If the tahs turned around and said "We've signed Brett Stapleton and Digby Ioane" (Sorry they are both Force contracted, but they are the two I want to see in cuddly blue, maybe Rathbone too), or if they had some sort of plan with the future of the backline, then I'd be more inclined to see him go. As it is, they don't. There's guys like Lachlan Turner that aren't getting a run and it's a shame.

But Lote is the guy they want at 11, I certainly do believe he is a skilled player (except for when he kicks, please god don't let him kick) and can make a lot happen. One thing I'd like to see him improve on is his offloading. Whether people on here believe it or not, he does draw the attention of the defense every time he touches the ball, which means someone, somewhere is unmarked.


I try not to get caught up in the "crowd appeal" aspect, I try to stick with the rugby issues and how the team play. But one other thing I'm hopeful this deal shows is NSW do have money to spend on players, so hopefully we can attract a few off-contract players instead of being the team losing them.

[LarryNJ]

Why do they negotiate contracts in the middle of the season? It seems like such a distraction to the team.

[Sagerian]

Better to do it now than during the world cup I would imagine, which is when his contract would have expired.


To be fair, negotiations started in November.

[The EnForcer]

To be fair, negotiations started in November.

Yeah and that was when he said he wanted it done and dusted as soon as possible but in todays press releases he was always looking for the magic $1m
a year. Good on him I guess, but Larry is right and negotiations should be done when it least disrupts the playing season. What has it cost the Tahs?Maybe some rules need to be put in place by the ARU.

[Goldmember]

I wonder if Cameron Shepherd gets paid more than Lote? Based on current skill levels, Shepherd should be earning twice as much

[RuckNMaul]

its hard forany one to argue lote to be honestly worth that much.

the whole tahs arnt having a stella year as it is and i do think that leaving the negotiations to run into the season was wrong and probebly a distraction to the whole squad