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Message: [QUOTE="Big Pete, post: 3384478, member: 1899"] The other side of the coin is that Newcastle had little choice. Sure, they'd have a $1,000,000 to spend and maybe by 2025 there will be a good player to attract but in the short term the move could have been catastrophic for the club. Their only hope would be to sign Cameron Munster and there was no guarantee that was going to happen. Even so, there's also no guarantee they'd get a great return of investment since Munster is nearing the end of his career and has his share of baggage. So they release Ponga, realistically they maybe able to interest Scott Drinkwater, Corey Allan, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstead or Kaeo Weekes into breaking their contract early but you're relying on other parties to come to the table and they don't have to. Furthermore, none of them carry the cache Ponga does and you're going to have a difficult time explaining to managers how their clients are going to gain value in your system if you can't sell them on big name players. Essentially you just become the new Wests Tigers. You over-pay on rookie prospects, they get their quick cash-in, get some experience and if they're any good other clubs will come along and pay them decent coin where they can extend their careers and potentially retire on a fat desperation deal from a desperate club that needs that "premiership experience". Now a decision like this would have been tougher a few years ago when the game had a decent supply of players coming through. However the pandemic has really eaten away at the reserves and we've got players who are a good year or two off where they should be in their development. The player agents know they have clubs over the barrel and the clubs simply have to take it on the chin. Unfortunately for the Knights they can't really promote from within either. Their options at this stage are Tex Hoy who at best is a decent utility option and Bailey Hodgson who is a development player from the UK who has barely played due to injury these past two seasons. When you scroll further there's McKenzie Baker the former North Queensland product who hasn't set the world on fire at QCup, David Armstrong who is only just beginning to turn heads in Flegg and Fletcher Sharpe who has only risen to prominence recently after scoring 6 tries against a hapless Dragons outfit. [/QUOTE]

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