Smart contract.
We have a bunch of players off contracts 23/24. Some players will go up in stocks and some down. To keep the balance sheet the club can't go crazy on deals in short term.
Yep. The fan favourite theory that you can trick players into long term contracts under their market value isn't sustainable. And it's not the way to build a happy squad.
Here's how it's done, and it's at least partly what we're doing:
1. Build a winning team that players will want to join for less than the most money they can get. They'll do it for two reasons. One, that it's fun to win and they want some of that. Two, that being part of a winning team will rub off on them, making them better players and worth more in the long run. Having a club of players who are mostly on slight unders is perfect. They're always playing for their next contract.
2. Building a winning team is easier said than done. Most importantly you need to recruit the right coaching staff, build the right culture and prune the weeds. We appear to be on the right track there. Particularly with our defence coaching and the atmosphere Kevvie has created.
3. You need to pay players slightly less than their market value, but not on long contracts. The aim being you get them slightly under their market value in the first year (because your club is so desirable) but markedly under in the following year or two (because they've improved). That means you will be constantly subject to rumours about players being sought by other clubs. You have to live with that. It comes with success.
4. I hope we're not doing this, but the shortcut to building a winning team is to cheat the cap. That's how the Storm did it. They cheated their way to the top, built the foundations of a successful club off the back off it, and then managed to stay there after they were busted. The foundation they built still allows them to attract quality players for unders. I suspect the Broncos did the same in the early years, when third party deals were less scrutinized but didn't get caught. And the same team took the same formula to the Storm.
It's hard on fans, but having this constant flux of players wanting pay rises they've earned from the amount they've improved their value at your club is the ideal atmosphere for attracting talent. The harder part is having to constantly negotiate trying to retain them.
If Herbie improves - as expected - over the next year, we will probably lose him but we'll pick up the next Herbie on the production line. And so it continues.
