Mal Meninga said:
“In reality, there no marquees available. You can’t just click your fingers – they are all taken. How do you do that? Initially, we have to build our own marquees. Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow wasn’t a marquee when the Dolphins got him. They turned him into one,” Meninga said.
“It’s tough, it’s challenging but I believe we are heading down the right path. Why do you have to be vocal about it? Behind the scenes, we have a very small team, hardly any staff, trying to make this all work.
“Everyone has all this great advice for us but they don’t understand what we’re trying to operate under. We got no start-up money. Basically, the money that we got has been provided by the West Australian Government.
“It’s not a matter of buying a marquee and everyone else will follow. We talked to Tino (Fa’asuamaleaui) but he decided to stay at the Titans.
“The Dolphins, they were pretty smart. They went out and bought senior players to set standards and expectations and that’s what we’re doing. We are building a whole ecosystem. Unlike the Dolphins, we
don’t have any junior systems already set up.
“We just haven’t got that (PNG’s tax-free money) but we can only control what we can control. We’re under the same conditions as every other club.
“It would be great to have extra support but we’re not in that situation – we are owned the ARL Commission.”
“I’m trying to explain to everyone that if we’re going to get a marquee player, hopefully there’s going to be some sort of third-party arrangement. Hopefully. That’s what the board members are trying to do at the moment,”
“The kids we are signing, they can be marquees in the future. Young Luke Laulilii could be an outstanding prospect. We’ve signed Apa Twidle, a really exciting kid. Tyran Wishart. Liam Henry. Josh Curren, Scotty Sorensen, Sifa (Talakai). They are telling me that they all want to be leaders.
“There are a lot of players in the game worth $1.3m a year, $1.4m, who are all signed up. There’s not many around at the moment. I’m working on players who are going to marquee players in the future.
“There’s no juniors at the moment that are come through and flowing like the Dolphins so we have to create a fluid ecosystem where we are working hard in the market for a 16, 17-year-old kid, and getting him into our system for a three to five year period.
“We have a three-to-five year plan and the Government is supporting us for seven years. That’s the time frame we are looking at to create some sustainability in the business.”