Broncos had a talented young player and possible future cornerstone of the club signed to a contract and had exclusive rights to negotiate with that player to extend their contract, before November 1 when other teams come knocking.
Broncos fail to lock this player up before the deadline, exposing themselves to a bidding war for said young player.
Desperate bottom 8 team throws ridiculous money at young player, who then begrudgingly leaves.
Broncos justify the loss by acting like their decision not to overpay was intelligent and prudent, when really they shouldn't have even allowed themselves to be in the position to be outbid in the first place.
This is EXACTLY what happened with Fifita and we clearly didn't learn our lesson.
This is sheer arrogance from the board. How many times are we going to say 'oh well not our fault, nothing we can do if a team wants to overpay, we did the right thing' and shift the blame instead of taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.
Is it going to take losing Dearden too before we realise how stupid this is?
Look at how the Roosters handled Keary coming off contract a couple of years ago when he was set to be the best player by a country mile available in free agency... they quietly extended him another 3 years BEFORE other clubs were even able to talk to him... Had they waited, maybe a desperate team pays him $1.5m or more and the Roosters lose him, but they knew better than to allow themselves to be in that situation.
START. EXTENDING. THE. PLAYERS. WE. WANT. TO. KEEP. BEFORE. OTHER. CLUBS. CAN. OVERPAY.