I love how the talk goes on here, a player comes up as a potential, inevitably followed by pages of "yeah nah pass not what we need". In the 7 role anything short of Cleary, Moses or a dead set future superstar is not what we need.
The thing is, we aren't those clubs that can recruit top tier players. We massively hit the jackpot getting Ponga to sign here. That has to go down as the best recruitment performance we have ever converted on, considering the position the club was in at the time.
But since then we haven't recruited top of the line talent. Even Ponga at the time was yet to be proven but fit the "future superstar" tag.
The prices being paid for average halves, and the premium demanded by those halves that have their heads above the pack is simply due to the lack of decent halves options, and the salary cap increasing. The numbers sound like a lot now, but in reality the cap is always on the up.
If we could get Brown that would be fantastic, Ponga runs the show mostly anyway and I'd be concerned if we got a top line 7, how would that gel with the way Ponga operates as he does not just play his fullback role, he is more like a half hiding at fullback.
Any half looking to come here would have to be asking the question how they fit in to the plan, how are they going to get a chance to play their footy if Ponga is the main attacking focus.
In the end, we have to sit back and watch "Sydney" clubs like the Tigers recruit top ties talent whilst we toil away with what we can get, and usually paying overs for that.
In the end, the NRL is ultimately to blame for the way the salary cap is quietly allowed to be rorted by TPA's.