Cowboys could lose Jason Taumalolo and Matt Scott to salary cap restraints
COWBOYS coach Paul Green has appealed to the NRL for salary cap guidance as his club confronts the reality that it could lose Test stars Matt Scott and Jason Taumalolo.
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COWBOYS coach Paul Green has appealed to the NRL for salary cap guidance as his club confronts the reality that it could lose Test stars Matt Scott and Jason Taumalolo.
The NRL and Rugby League Players’ Association are yet to finalise a new collective bargaining agreement from 2018, which will include revised salary cap.
The negotiations have stalled recruitment and retention practices at many clubs, who are playing Russian roulette with their squads beyond this season.
The Cowboys have already lost teenage sensation Kalyn Ponga, who has signed a lucrative deal with Newcastle from 2018.
And they are in danger of losing premiership-winning forwards Scott and Taumalolo, who have attracted serious interest from rivals.
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With champion halfback Johnathan Thurston also off-contract, the Cowboys are in a precarious position managing their roster without a definitive figure for what they can pay players next year.
“They probably need to give us a little bit of guidance so we’re all working to the same figure,” Green told The Courier Mail.
“It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but at least give us something. They must have a bit of an idea of what it’s going to be.
“Throughout this last 12 months, clubs have been working off anywhere from $9-10.5 million.
“There is a lot of difference there.
“You’d hate to lose a player for the sake of $100,000 then you find out you could have afforded it down the track. That’s the difficult part.”
Co-captain Scott is in the sights of cashed-up Newcastle while Cronulla has identified Taumalolo as the man to replace Paul Gallen.
Thurston is expected to finish his career in Townsville.
Ponga made his NRL debut in last year’s finals series and was a star of last month’s Auckland Nines.
The Cowboys were not willing to get closer to the Knight’s offer for Ponga due to the pressure it could have placed on their 2018 salary cap.
“If we had known what the cap was going to be, we might have been able to offer him more money,” Green said.
“At that stage we weren’t willing to risk that. We run the risk of being over the cap when it’s set.”
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