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Message: [QUOTE="Kooly87, post: 3252281, member: 9326"] Ok, so I'm trying to find some positives at the moment and I think I may have found something to look forward to. Looking at our current contract situation as it stands today and the only guys currently signed for 2023 and beyond are Haas, Flegler, Piakura, Riki and Lodge has player options in his favour. This effectively means we can re-build our entire roster from the ground up over 2021 and 2022. It's probably going to involve more short term pain, but there is some real, genuine light at the end of the tunnel if we use this opportunity wisely. If we look at the Storm, they are a club who almost religiously sticks to the formula of investing heavily in their spine and then one or two other key guys, and filling out the remainder of their cap with experienced journeymen who fill a specific need, and good up and coming rookies. If we were to maintain the same formula, then we can use these next 18 months or so to recruit a highly paid and proven specialist for each of our four spine positions as none of our current guys would be under contract for 2023. We could quite literally spend $3 million+ on recruiting four elite spine players if we wanted to, such is our flexibility under the cap going into 2023. Outside of these four gun spine players, we would still have Haas who we can build our pack around for 2023 and 2024 on a very, very good deal for the Broncos, though he's going to need a huge upgrade in 2025 so we'll need space up our sleeves. We can afford to have one more enforcer type Middle Forward, but that likely means only one of Lodge or TPJ, as it's unlikely our cap could sustain both (especially with Flegler soaking up too much money, but that ends at least after 2023). Ideally at this point we'd find a suitor for Lodge so we could re-sign TPJ, but if we can't then unfortunately, TPJ may have to go which is terrible but we're painted into a corner here by the contracts for Lodge and Flegler. Our Edge roles would be filled by Riki and Piakura who are both already signed and should both be hitting their strides by this point. It might prove useful to recruit an older and more experienced guy like Capewell between now and then to help us transition these guys into full time roles, but ideally that would not be a long term hire unless he continued to provide good value. The remainder of our pack outside of Haas, our Edges, and one of Lodge or TPJ, would then need to be guys who can be retained for very good value. Ideally we'd retain Carrigan and Bullemor, but we simply cannot get into a bidding war for these guys under any circumstances because we need to invest heavily in our spine roles and retaining Haas, and everything else comes second to those needs. This leaves us looking for probably an experienced journeyman type Prop and then another up and comer to play the base minute role. As for our backs, it is simply not viable for us to overinvest in more than one elite Outside Back besides our Fullback. This means we can have one gun Winger or one gun Centre, but cannot afford to spend stupid amounts of money on both. This likely means we need to retain one of Staggs or Coates, but we are in serious trouble if we attempt to keep both unless we can somehow pay unders for one or both of them. This means Oates needs to take a big pay cut or find a new club. It also means Herbie can only be retained provided he doesn't cost significantly more to re-sign than he costs us right now. Our Wing spots need to be made up of guys who make limited mistakes, or up and coming rookies who we want to blood in First Grade, but we cannot afford the luxury of overspending in this area so ideally we have one strike Centre, one workman like Centre, and probably one experienced Winger to go with an up and coming rookie. I cannot stress enough how bad it is for us to overspend on Wingers. I'm going to go with the current 2022 Salary Cap number of $9.11 million, obviously this will be slightly higher in 2023 though in all likelihood. I'll do my best with rough numbers here: If we spend the following: $3.5 million on x 4 Spine Players $850k on Piakura and Riki combined $500k on Haas (amazing price) $600k on Flegler (awful price, offsets the great value of Haas) $700k on retaining TPJ or letting Lodge take up his PO's (worst case scenario) This leaves us with $6,110,000 and 21 spots 1 x Gun Outside Back is likely to cost $750-800k so that leaves $5,310,000 and 20 spots at an average of $265,500 per spot, which initially doesn't sound great, but remember that you'll have a chunk of rookies and base price spare Middles and Outside Back, so say 8 out of that 20 were on the rookie wage of approx $125,000 that takes another million bucks out of the pile and leaves 12 spots to be split amongst $4,310,000 at $359,166 per player. If six of those 12 spots went to guys earning around $300k that leaves you with six spots and $2,510,000 to spend on them at an average of $418,333 per player. If three of six could be purchased at $380,000 that leaves you with 1,370,000 to spend on just three spots at an average of $456,666 per player, and these last three spots are crucial because they need to be your supporting case for your main guys. The Brandon Smith or Kenny Bromwich or Dale Finucane of the current Melbourne sides. There is some room to toggle here, but it's absolutely critical that for every guy you spend over on outside of these brackets, other guys will need to come in under in the bracket below. It's a very delicate juggling act, but it ensures you have an elite spine, some very high quality guys to build your pack around, and some strike power on at least one side of the field for your Fullback and Halves to work with. Melbourne have been no doubt blessed in how well they've filled these roles outside their man cast and perhaps we won't have the same results initially, but if we rigidly stick to spending money in our key roles and not overspending elsewhere you will absolutely see this side turn itself around in the near future. [/QUOTE]

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