Picking the eyes out of Parramatta

I couldn't see a Norman/Martin pairing ever working.

Both severely lacking in game management and organisational skills.

 

Yeh and with Wallace at dummy half it'd be a pretty gun spine.

 

Brisbane play with a very, very repetitive, disciplined & structured game plan though. Every back & every forward play very similar roles and they never shy away from that.

Penrith couldn't be any more polar opposite.

 

I'm not one for conspiracy theories but Paul Kent just pulled out a corker.

Watmough is assumed to be getting somewhere around 750k a year. Under the insurance agreement the Eels would still be required to pay him for the time he was at the club prior to the injury which was November, December & January. The insurance group would then pay the rest and that would not go towards the salary cap. Those other 9 months add up to $562,500.

Not bad.

 

Yeh I feel like it would be a bit of a cop out if all the Eels had to do after 4 years of deliberate salary cap cheating was just retire Anthony Watmough, pay a 750k fine & lose 12 points.

No one fully knows the ins and outs of the Eels cheating so I may be way off here but by the sounds of it this was multiple minor payments across a range of different methods to many players. So I think it's fair to assume that the extra 500k has probably gone a long way to assembling the roster they have now. The ability to offer an extra 20-50k to retain or sign a player could've been crucial on any number of deals, especially for a club like the Eels who had been struggling on the field.

You're not just allowing a side who's had an unfair advantage in contract negotiations compete with 24/25 of the illegally put together squad but you're also putting them up against sides who on the flip side have likely been negatively affected by the now inflated market values driven by the Eels salary cap rorting.

 

Yeah I think that amount is how much theyre over the cap. Remember TPAs are not included in the cap so who knows how much they have there that are illegal. I'd imagine Watmough's salary that comes under the cap is nowhere near the actual amount he gets, that's why it may not help get them under the cap.