NEWS Off-contract Oates faces uncertain future at Broncos

Brisbane veteran Corey Oates has not received a contract offer for next season from the club and says he will almost certainly finish his NRL career a one-club man.

The off-contract 29-year-old winger has played 211 NRL games with the Broncos and has inked one-year extensions late in seasons in the past, but at this stage the club has not opened talks for a new deal.

Oates was asked whether he would be a Bronco in 2025.

"Hopefully," he said.

"As I have said, probably the 20 times you have asked me, I will leave it up to the club.

"I have always made it pretty well known that I am not going to go anywhere. It is always either going to be here or that will be it. If there is something put forward, I will look at it with my family.

"I just want to enjoy the rest of the year and hopefully we can go all the way. I still feel like we can."

Oates is likely to retire if he does not get a new Broncos deal, although he is open to the possibility of a short deal elsewhere.

"It is probably not a definite no but it would be a pretty hard decision for me to leave the club I have been at since I was 14 or 15," he said.

"I have always wanted to be a one-club player and that was always going to be here."

Oates has scored 121 career tries and is third on the all-time Broncos list, just one behind Darren Lockyer.

The lanky winger arrived at the club in 2011, the same year Lockyer retired, before debuting in 2013.

"It is great company to be in," Oates said.

"Locky finished and I started. I found out I would be coming here to play and train as a kid and all I wanted to do was have a training session with my idol growing up.

"He retired the year I got here which was pretty hard to cop but to be up on that board with him is just as good.

"If I can equal or get past him it would be great but I have never been in it for all the accolades for myself.

"It is about playing the game I loved my whole life and being part of a club I grew up watching and supporting."

Oates conceded Steve Renouf's record of 142 tries was probably a bridge too far.

Oates missed training on Monday but said a knee niggle would not keep him out of Saturday night's home clash with St George Illawarra.

"It is just old age. It is actually all good," Oates said.

"It copped a bit of a knock and there was a bit of a flare-up.

"It was always the plan just to give it a rest and keep me ready for the bigger training sessions during the week."

The Broncos who have lost their last five games, only have 17 of their top 30 to pick from against the Dragons due to injury and State of Origin duty.

Oates said that statistic was "confronting" on one level but added the Broncos still had a "great team" and plenty of strike weapons with Deine Mariner, Kotoni Staggs and Ezra Mam in the side.

"For us it about completing, sticking to the game plan and working hard," Oates said.

Canberra Times

 

[Wolfie]

it's his problem that he committed to the 1 year contracts, sure injury hurt him on that but that is the risk he took, he is a min wage player if he is exclusively playing wing, his value increases if he can play as a bench backrower that said, I get he was loyal and arguably underpaid especially in 2022 but his value is based on what he is now, the fact is he is not a starter and arguably without injuries he would be playing Qcup atm, that isn't someone we pay much all things considered.

we do have the privilege of getting discounts on his wage salary cap wise so staying top 30 min wage makes alot of sense, but for me that depends on him also being forward depth mainly, I think he does that better then being wing tbh, if he started on that for the back end this year and does well I would agree he is worth a bit more than min wage but I would like to see some runs on the board first.

That makes no sense you saying its his problem. He had a 2 year deal ( this year and next year if he or the club chose to activate it ) on more money than he is on now. The club approached him to re negotiate it because we had very little cap room to extend players. If he didn't, we would have lost players. They banked on him putting the Broncos first. I'd say we owe Oatsey.

They relied on him being a good club man and doing the right thing. Who else has done that? You get people like Payne, Mam, Piakura etc saying how much they love the Broncos but they dont take less to keep the squad together. Walsh says the same thing, lets see if he walks the walk as well. Carrigan is about the only one taking unders and has taken less to stay here for a few contracts now.

 

[john1420]

Whatever we are paying Baker and Gosiewski makes Oates on minimum wage or close to it seem like a steal.

I don't see any downside in having Oates on a min wage type contract with the expectation of playing 2-3 games a year.

A bit off topic for this thread and even though i am a Staggs fan, he needs to take a huge haircut on his next contract or we move him on to free up money to be better spent elsewhere.

Walters and recruitment team needs to put their hand up on a current failure of the 2024 recruitment drive of Baker, Gosiewski and Hunt. Easy to say in hindsight but they should and could have done better

I agree that players hairstyles are often ridiculous, but Staggs is OK with me

I do think he'll need to take a paycut for his next deal though

 

[Broncapz]

Oatesy is still good enough for what he'd be getting.

You've gotta reward loyalty. Just not in the way we rewarded Alex Glenn and co.