Connor Watson

Club could offer him a minimum wage 1 year deal. Watson likely to be a 12+ month recovery meaning he wont be back until finals time next year.

Who knows how he is going to go on comeback, lost speed and agility etc. I cant see another club picking him up with that injury so he doesnt have a lot of options.

Does the club be ruthless and cut him loose here, or show him some sympathy and roll the dice with some salary cap money.

Shouldn't be that long recovery. Mine was 9 months when I did it, but Watson will have top line medical staff working with him. Think I heard him mention 5 months in a presser for his boots charity initiative. Still season ending but he might be back in early rounds of next year.
 
Watson said another player - I think he said Kurt Baptiste - had a 5 month recovery. He also said this injury usually has one of the longest recovery times.
At best he might make it back for some pre season next year, but at worst he could miss most of next year.
I say take him off the playing roster and give him a job as a junior coach for next year, and then give him a chance to earn a contract for 2022.
 
Watson said another player - I think he said Kurt Baptiste - had a 5 month recovery. He also said this injury usually has one of the longest recovery times.

You're right, maybe that's what I was thinking of with the 5-month timeframe. There's different levels of severity I think. Baptiste might have only partially ruptured. Still, what a beast to be back in such a short time.
 
He's played 41 out of a potential 62 with a 46% win rate, which is pretty high win rate since our team would have won way less than 50%.
Looking at it more from an economic return, I'd consider the following when looking at any potential offer:
  • based on the above, he has played around 2/3 of his potential games as a contribution to the club although I'd probably equate it to less than 60% when you look at the games he's been injured in - won't go back through previous season but this year alone has seen him only play 11 minutes against Panthers and 7 minutes against the Bulldogs before coming off
  • an assessment of how long he will realistically be on the sidelines for next season - for simplicity I'll say he will miss a 1/3 of next season
  • he was originally signed as a spine player by Brown and is now being utilised as an (effective) utility player off the bench which also diminishes a realistic asking price
Based on that info, I think a fair offer of up to $300K for 2021 would be an upper limit and perhaps slightly higher offer for another year (maybe $350K) subject to performance clauses in club's favour on number of games on field being met in 2021 season. I'd be happy after that to have an option for a 3rd year (in the club's favour) for similar $$$
 
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Nope, not on the cans at all. He is going to take a long time to get over this injury, Knights dont have to sign him and there are plenty saying not to.

If we dont sign him we have mann and hoy that can do his role.

Is another club going to sign him with this injury? Maybe, maybe not.

350k 3 year deal is a big roll of the dice considering his injury troubles. Why spend that when we have two other blokes probably on less that can both deliver something similar.
 
I really like Watson, and think he's our best utility player, he adds a lot to our team performance when he's available, and IMO he's one of the few players that regularly puts in 100%, he just seems to always be putting himself around the ball. I feel really sorry for him as the injury has come at the worst possible time for him. Unfortunately we're running a business, and I can't see us risking much cap space on someone that might not fully recover for an extended period of time. I hope we can hold onto him somehow.
 
With Watsons injury 1 guy was back from it in 5 months. The end of March is 8 months away and i cant imagine there's a harder worker than Watson .
I reckon Watson will be back for the start of the regular season if not he will be close .
 
Don’t think we should re-sign Watson at this stage, let’s look for a good to quality 5/8 playmaker with his money and then use Mann as our 14.
Watson’s current injury is serious long term and not his first bad one, has missed lots of games as well as having lost him for big minutes in others. Not only is it costly $ wise but leaves the team short on numbers. He is probably close to our most expensive player based on cost for minutes played.
Forget him and fix other problems/requirements and if he comes back ok then give him a chance on low offer.
 
I’d have no problem re-signing based on his performances but he’s injury prone and the most recent one is very serious and will very tough to come back from.

So sadly we should not be re-signing him. But hopefully he can pick up a contract elsewhere.
 
He's still in his early 20s, has earnt well over a million dollars playing football, and he said in an interview last year that he'd started Uni but deferred for football, so the worst thing that could happen to him is he might have to go to uni and become a PE teacher or something.
 
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