This must be the absolute top assignment for Greg Miller and Terry Wallace. A 5 year deal 2007-2011) should be put to the young man or his management which equates to about $300,000 per year or $ 1.5 million over the 5. I think thats a fair deal for a young man at this time. Akermanis atBrisbane as a Brownlow Medallist and at his scintillating best was on $280,000.
That signature should then quickly be followed up with 3 year deals for Tambling, Meyer and 2 year deals for Pattison and Polo. This group of 5 must be central to the hopes of our club, they will form hopefully a core part of our next premiership side. Lets not blow it by being lazy.
You’d like to think that RFC would be a bit more switched on than to let good young players slip through the net. There shouldn’t be any need to sell ourselves up the river, if we build the right sort of environment for players to get the best out of themselves. They should want to stay for all the right reasons and not just the money; otherwise we’ve learnt nothing from the past. Till now, RFC have done the right thing by Brett and gone out of their way to help him, and others with their schooling, and he’s had as good a first season as anyone could dream up, so a lot would have to go haywire, between now and when he’s due to re-sign, for him to have thoughts of going elsewhere. Sign him up before time, yes, but I don’t think 5 years is the way to go and in some ways that could be the lazy option for both sides to take.
For a number of reasons, I think it will more than likely be for 3 years. Don’t know whether his management would go for a 5 year deal just yet. Anything can happen in that amount of time. They will more than likely figure that his potential has the ability to take him who knows where, so a 2 or 3 year deal would be the best option, as he could, in all probability be vying for a much better contract in a couple of years time. You’d be more concerned if they opted for such a deal.
Not sure whether it’s good for clubs to go down that track with such a young player, either, in terms of motivation. That doesn’t seem to be an issue now, and perhaps may never be, but you don’t want players getting into a comfort zone when they haven’t really deserved the right to that length of contract, in one sense. It’s all way too much too soon, and anything can happen in that amount of time.
