Knights’ Recruitment Manager

It is not rocket science. Manulelelua is not a star. He is a superstar. Not like the media twats label every second player as. He is legit.
He is a player who influences game results. Almost every week. TWICE player of the match in his first two WC games. Forget the opponents' quality. They are a very strong forward pack are Samoa. Missing Haas among others. But this is how it works. You step up. Take your chance. Francis has done that and reset the bar for it. His rise should be studied.
Line breaks with the pace of an elite winger, running lines that leave opponents stalling and clutching at air, and cutout passes that a top tier halfback would stand and applaud. You are looking at the next million dollar forward. Forwards with a mere portion of his ability are on high triple figures numbers. His work ethic for the ball for Samoa is incredible. He is wanting it on every play. He openly has stated he was lazy at times. Did not want to do the work. Pretty safe to say that chapter is closed.
If you want to wait and watch the heartbreak unfold then that is up to you. But it will be him or Sharpe. We won't keep both if Best re-signs. Love Braddy but his time here is upon the dollars he demands. If we want to seriously believe this squad will stay as is then this is the only way.
If the Best deal goes through and is ratcheted then we deserve everything that follows.
 
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Fair shout. All three of Sharpe, Manu and McEwen come off contract in 28. The rise of Manu no one saw coming this quickly. The clubs priority will be Sharpe you would think.

If Manu will be demanding $M+ come November 1 next year I highly doubt the club can keep him.

Also coming of contact in 28 are Cody Hopwood, and Diesel Hagan who you would consider they want to retain. So the Best deal now is a tough decision.

If the cap is 16M in 28 how many 1M+ could you have? McEwen won’t be demanding as much as Manu.
 
Few things to play out for resigning next year.
Players like Sharpe, Hopwood and Crossy are long term signings - 3-5yrs etc and being local to their inner core I could see them not taking top $$ and doing what they need to just stay with the club.
It'll also be down to club playing well still and the excitement and enjoyment of Holbrook/White/Hales

McEwen has had a major jump in 2 years of NRL and has been with us since SG ball. Family all here and younger brother playing in Matts next year. Keeping him on a modest contract shouldn't be an issue.

Francis is a very humble lad. My goal would be to hope to be able to keep him here till around 2030/31, stay with a successful team (hopefully). By then your Mulherin's, McKay's Townsends would have come through and be punching the door down so releasing Manu and letting him get a big pay day elsewhere would hurt less, plus we'd have had him in a premiership timeframe.

That's my hope that the closeness of the group, the happiness around the club and continued success is enough for the next batch of off contract lads stay for good upgrades but not ridiculous money.

Basically how I felt about Dom before he left for Roosters, "You've just started your career, we gave you the opportunity, stick with us for a few more years then have your paycheck later on".
 
luke46 said:
Not if he costs us Manuleilua.
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The 3rd year of Niukore's contract will absolutely impact our ability to hold onto Manuleleua. If Niukore signed a 2 year contract they'd both hit the market Nov 1st 2027.

Both versatile forwards. They share the same profile in many ways, one is just exceedingly better than the other
 
Worth noting Niukore was announced as a three-year deal, but that was also the case with a few other deals handed out by O’Sullivan that ended up actually only being for two years with a club option for a third. Manuleleua’s first deal here was like that, as was Taj Annan’s. Most notably Dylan Brown - no mention of the final two years being options in the announcement. They did acknowledge the options in Ponga’s latest deal, but the point remains that these announcements aren't always entirely forthcoming on all details.

No idea if it’s also the case with Niukore but it certainly makes more sense if it is, and there’s precedent to believe it might be.
 
mullenmagic said:
Worth noting Niukore was announced as a three-year deal, but that was also the case with a few other deals handed out by O’Sullivan that ended up actually only being for two years with a club option for a third. Manuleleua’s first deal here was like that, as was Taj Annan’s. Most notably Dylan Brown - no mention of the final two years being options in the announcement. They did acknowledge the options in Ponga’s latest deal, but the point remains that these announcements aren't always entirely forthcoming on all details.

No idea if it’s also the case with Niukore but it certainly makes more sense if it is, and there’s precedent to believe it might be.
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You could be onto something.
NRL changed the rule where options aren't made public anymore.
 
frankLauda said:
Fair shout. All three of Sharpe, Manu and McEwen come off contract in 28. The rise of Manu no one saw coming this quickly. The clubs priority will be Sharpe you would think.

If Manu will be demanding $M+ come November 1 next year I highly doubt the club can keep him.

Also coming of contact in 28 are Cody Hopwood, and Diesel Hagan who you would consider they want to retain. So the Best deal now is a tough decision.

If the cap is 16M in 28 how many 1M+ could you have? McEwen won’t be demanding as much as Manu.
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Sharpe should be the priority out of the three, with whatever salary cap left going towards either Manulelua or Best. With that in mind, should we do whatever we can now to retain Best, given he comes off contract before the other two and back ourselves to jag a premiership in the short term? Or should we be thinking more long term and managing our cap accordingly?
 
jamesgould said:
I’d say the November 1 deadline for him will be one of the big talking points in the NRL in 2027.
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Tbf the moment we signed Lucas on a long term deal we kinda conceded the losing Manu. Assuming we'll need to choose between either of Manu and McEwen at the end of next season, with Manu being the more expensive of the two.

On the plus side, we'll Manu for at least the next two seasons.
 
For the next two years all of a sudden we have a very stacked side. Some decisions to made at the back end of next season.
Priority has to be Sharpe. If we can convince Manu/MeEwen to back end there deals moving Nikora and Jsaf on. I think that’s the move. But wow next two years what a gun team, we always had a good backline but now have the forward pack also.

Where does Harry Grant fit in! 😂
 
frankLauda said:
Where does Harry Grant fit in! 😂
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Reserve grade 😂

But seriously, Grant wouldn’t work with our current squad. There’ll be too many playmakers (too many chiefs, not enough Indians)

We have Ponga, Brown, Sharpe and now possibly Manuleleua. Thats not including Smith , before you add in Grant. It just starts getting too confusing for everyone, in my opinion
 
I think it’s complicated by the fact we have a team that performed wayyyyyyy ahead of their contracted value.

I can see the similarities between us and Penrith. They had a nursery of young players coming through that allowed them to offload players like Burton, Kikau, Crichton, Leniu, Crichton, Api, JFH, Luai, Turuva - I’m sure most of those seemed like big name losses at the time.

One of the things their CEO spoke about was how they split their cap.
They did theirs positionally.

So spine - X amount - Cleary, Edwards earning the $$ and Cogger/Talagi/Kenny balancing the sheet.

Backs - X amount - To’o the higher, with McLean, Jenkins and Alamoti balancing.

Etc.


think we need to be doing something similar, keeping in mind our “balancing” players positions. But also in terms of money

Our spine would be close to 35% of cap with Ponga, Brown, Sharpe and Hagan/Crossland*.

Our backs are pretty well paid too with Young and Marzhew on reasonable winger money - but our play style relies on them. Then we have Best asking for a lot and Hunt wanting an upgrade or Winter coming through ranks.

then depends how you split the rest

edges - Lucas secured. McEwen probably due a pay rise and Manuleleua due a bigger pay rise. 3 into 2 doesn’t really work - so one needs to be moved on, or switch positions imo.

Middles - Hopwood should be prioritised - long term future. Safs provides the experience required, Mooney to bridge the period for Hopwood to make his way into a starting forward and Crouch, Saulo, Niukore would end up being our bench middles.

A few problems I think we run into with regards to retention.

Croker - brilliant season this year and probably deserves another contract. However, floated Manuleleua moves to 13, if that’s the case, I don’t think we can afford to give Croker what he commands based on his 2026 season, to be a bench player.

Crossland - he’s integral at the moment and hard to imagine a Knights team without him. But if Hagan comes on, as much as everyone expects, he’s probably going to be starting hooker in 2028 or 2029. And (see above) if we have 13 filled, Crossland finds himself on the bench so should that factor into our negotiations? Opposed to his role in our success this season.

Best and Hunt - I kind of don’t see a world where we can upgrade both. See above - I think if we upgrade Best - we need the cheapest Centre option in Winter and lock him down early. If Best goes, I think we end up upgrading Hunt to keep some NRL experience or going to market.


It’s a bit of a domino effect in a lot of respects.
A lot will come down to where Holbrook thinks we should play players.

Unless we sign everyone we can - worry about letting players move on later. Eg we win our premierships in 27, 28 and say “hey Bradman/somebody else, thanks for the ride, if you want a pay day somewhere, you have our blessing to pursue it while you/we are at the top”.
 
Seth Gecko said:
It is not rocket science. Manulelelua is not a star. He is a superstar. Not like the media twats label every second player as. He is legit.
He is a player who influences game results. Almost every week. TWICE player of the match in his first two WC games. Forget the opponents' quality. They are a very strong forward pack are Samoa. Missing Haas among others. But this is how it works. You step up. Take your chance. Francis has done that and reset the bar for it. His rise should be studied.
Line breaks with the pace of an elite winger, running lines that leave opponents stalling and clutching at air, and cutout passes that a top tier halfback would stand and applaud. You are looking at the next million dollar forward. Forwards with a mere portion of his ability are on high triple figures numbers. His work ethic for the ball for Samoa is incredible. He is wanting it on every play. He openly has stated he was lazy at times. Did not want to do the work. Pretty safe to say that chapter is closed.
If you want to wait and watch the heartbreak unfold then that is up to you. But it will be him or Sharpe. We won't keep both if Best re-signs. Love Braddy but his time here is upon the dollars he demands. If we want to seriously believe this squad will stay as is then this is the only way.
If the Best deal goes through and is ratcheted then we deserve everything that follows.
Click to expand...
Yeah if he maintains his levels, as an edge forward, he's like a $900K player on the current cap. Basically savant-level with his impact plays, him & Kalyn came very close to carrying us to a premiership win in a grand final where we got totally owned physically.

If he's a lock forward putting up huge numbers on top of that impact play ability, what is this guy? Sam Burgess+++? The love child of Isaah Yeo and Leka Halasima? His market value gets to around Payne Haas territory.

You're not getting that kind of money after ten weeks of great footy, could be a flash in the pan. But if he backs it all up next year or even improves, he goes to November 1 as a consensus top 3-5 forward in the game. Legitimately.

I don't think people are really absorbing this and that's why I've kind of written off that we retain him. We have so much cap space allocated already.

And I would still keep Fletcher Sharpe over Francis, even factoring in all the above.

These forwards that have it in them to hard-carry a team to a grand final, your Haas, Andrew Fifita, Taumalolo, that kind of guy, you want them on your books for the apex seasons of their career. Which I think very well could be 2027 and 2028. You want a half or fullback of Sharpe's ability until they retire. There is only so far he'll ever drop off as a player.
 
bremsstrahlung said:
I can see the similarities between us and Penrith. They had a nursery of young players coming through that allowed them to offload players like Burton, Kikau, Crichton, Leniu, Crichton, Api, JFH, Luai, Turuva - I’m sure most of those seemed like big name losses at the time.
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I think if they could keep some of them, in a perfect world like JFH, maybe Crichton, they would, but they know it's an uphill battle. Maybe they knew eventually Burton would want to be a 5/8 and Luai was cheaper (for the time being)
But yeah then finding replacements, and you could say some guys would still make the team today, but salary cap and all...
Good Times said:
Kind of a nice problem to have, in a way. Our roster is currently in a state where the question is "who of our current players do we prioritise retaining?" instead of many years of "which big fish do we need to fill holes in the roster?"
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That's always the goal, Penriths aim was like 80% from within which would take a while, but it's pretty much there for the most part.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Yeah if he maintains his levels, as an edge forward, he's like a $900K player on the current cap. Basically savant-level with his impact plays, him & Kalyn came very close to carrying us to a premiership win in a grand final where we got totally owned physically.

If he's a lock forward putting up huge numbers on top of that impact play ability, what is this guy? Sam Burgess+++? The love child of Isaah Yeo and Leka Halasima? His market value gets to around Payne Haas territory.

You're not getting that kind of money after ten weeks of great footy, could be a flash in the pan. But if he backs it all up next year or even improves, he goes to November 1 as a consensus top 3-5 forward in the game. Legitimately.

I don't think people are really absorbing this and that's why I've kind of written off that we retain him. We have so much cap space allocated already.

And I would still keep Fletcher Sharpe over Francis, even factoring in all the above.

These forwards that have it in them to hard-carry a team to a grand final, your Haas, Andrew Fifita, Taumalolo, that kind of guy, you want them on your books for the apex seasons of their career. Which I think very well could be 2027 and 2028. You want a half or fullback of Sharpe's ability until they retire. There is only so far he'll ever drop off as a player.
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I cant see Sandon staying at the club, he'll get offered a starting 7 role somewhere. Those funds could be useful in retention.
 
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