Payne Haas:
"I’d like to stay. It’s been really hard, it’s been a tough few days to be honest. I turned up here on Friday night to play against the Titans, so that shows I am here playing for my teammates and the club. That’s all that matters.”
“I don’t want to talk about the release stuff. I’ll let my manager handle that side of things and hopefully they can work things out. I’m not usually one to get rattled but when the boos came out I had to compose myself and stay in the game and do my job for the team."
Ikin:
“We will get back around the table with his management with a view to constructive conversations about what the next phase looks like for Payne at the Broncos. I won’t speculate on why he wants a release. He clearly has his own reasons, some of which have been made known to us, others might be only known to him and his agents. Whatever got him to that point I’m sure will be fleshed out in more detail, and the more we understand each other’s positions, the more constructive the negotiation will be.”
“Nothing surprises me in this game anymore. It never ceases to amaze me. I always expect the unexpected in the NRL. When you are winning, there’s a set of problems. When you are losing, there’s a set of problems and all you can do is approach each problem with an opportunity to find a solution. Some are good problems to have, some are not so good."
“When the negotiation reached this point, we thought, ‘OK, how do we get this back on track and find a solution to this new problem’.”
“I’m not concerned about team morale. That’s how negotiations work for every player and everybody takes a different approach to negotiations. I might do it differently to Dave Donaghy and Payne’s agents might do it differently to some other agents. That’s the cut and thrust of the negotiation process.”
Walters:
“He has been a wonderful player for us. He is the best prop in the game so we don’t want to lose the best prop in the game. We will sit down with his management team and work something out.”
