Roosters havent really been in our position. Roosters poach most of their players so they dont have the junior development we do. Melbourne dont develop local kids, they encroach into other areas to get their talent ( which they do well and do develop players at least ) but they havent really produced a real top line player for a while now. Probably Munster is the one that sticks out. Who are these potential star half-backs at the Roosters and Melbourne who arent playing they are keeping and more importantly, who want to leave ( as was with the case with Taylor )
As for your point about Hunt, are you seriously trying to tell me anyone in the game expected the Dragons to offer him a 6 million dollar contract? to quote you in the same patronising manner, Please.... not one person predicted that. We never in our wildest dreams expected to be priced out of contract talks with him. The offer wasnt just huge, it was astronomical for a player like Ben Hunt. The plan was always bring Taylor back here when his contract expired at the titans, but again, nobody would have predicted we would be priced out of getting him. As i said, in hindsight, we stuffed up. In reality, we were just unfortunate we came up against 2 clubs that were willing to spend more than we were and by ridiculously large amounts.
Your comparison with Haas isnt comparing apples with apples. You are comparing a player on 500k a year to 2 players on a million a year. Hunt and Haas are both on 6 year contracts for example, Haas is 3 million, Hunt is 6 million. Ash Taylor is on a 3 year deal at 1 million a year. The Haas deal isnt even close to the other two.
https://www.nrl.com/news/2018/07/18/brisbane-broncos-re-sign-payne-haas-on-lucrative-six-year-deal/
https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nr...y/news-story/ce6dbc3abd0d9091373d009d1d1dc26e
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/as...titans-on-threeyear-deal-20171025-gz7lxo.html