some journos say cap pressure, a couple have said room to move.. who knows whose got the right mail..
Im just going by what us supporters were told at that fan night when dimma had just started by Gale and CC.. We were in the process of front loading a lot of contracts bc 1) we had to make the minimum 95% and 2) to get us ready to have a serious crack when free agency came in. The club felt we were one of the few that were preparing early for it and whilst we were still getting our house in order in many other areas, on that front we were proactive and ahead of the pack in their opinion. MT and Tuckerbag/don fistiki were there too and would confirm this. Hindsight tells us they were correct. Since then we've landed Houli, Grigg, maric and Chaplin, not on huge coin but probably respectable mid range contracts, but that's probably been offset by some of the front loaded contracts now having a minimum amount left. My educated or uneducated guess would say we have room to move for the reason I just mentioned. Again, time will tell soon enough what the truth is - as soon as trade and free agency starts.
Spot on Tony and yes that was what was relayed to us by CC at the time.
I always felt that we are in a position to move flexibly and stay well within salary cap with these lot of contracts and thus giving us a good chance to identify players for specific holes in our list rather than just getting a player for the sake of him being available to just make it seem that our footy department is doing something. Front loading of contracts was a big selling point.
By obtaining Maric in 2011 and Chaplin last year would not have hindered our salary cap room given Newman since then has been placed on the veterans list, retirements of notable players such as Tuck and given that McGuane, Nahas and some others who have been around for a while may be on the way out it may free up even more space.
Ralph Skata has generated this issue with the non signing of Dusty and has added speculation to our financial position which from where I sit seems better than sound.
As for Heath Shaw a change of environment may be all he needs. Once you see that a certain system/thing no longer works or is viable then you become rash and undisciplined first and then effort desire start to wane. He can play Newman's role off half back IMHO and we can play Newy as a pinch hitting forward like Stuart Dew with his skills. I am not against this as he has hardly been injured in recent years and to me has plenty of skill and ability and can play for another five or so seasons which to me fits right into our premiership window perfectly.
To me he is the perfect age group 24-28 and he'll be replacing some blokes already in there that word has seem to be on their way out. Premiership experienced players with that much good footy left in them don't come along every day. FFS we spruiked Clay Sampson as a premiership player which he was when he came to Punt Rd in 1999. I would look into this if the price fits our needs and requirements.
