NRL Market Watch: Loophole could deliver English star Jack Welsby to NRL

NRL clubs have started to circle Jack Welsby, confident of luring the St Helens maestro to Australia despite still being under contract in Super League.

Jack Welsby made a huge impression in the World Club Challenge. NRL Imagery

This is the bullish plan to lure one of Super League’s best to Australia.

NRL clubs have privately begun discussing the pursuit of St Helens star Jack Welsby, armed with a cheeky strategy to entice the champion fullback down under after next season, despite him still being under contract in England.

Welsby, 21, was a standout in Saints’ famous 13-12 win over Penrith in Saturday night’s World Club Challenge.

NRL clubs are aware Welsby is under contract at St Helens until the end of 2025, but are devising a plan to sign the player for 2026, 2027 and 2028.

Once that contract is signed, and with Welsby ready to play in Australia, the successful NRL club would start to agitate St Helens for an early release for 2025.

Australian clubs with fullbacks in their late 20s or early 30s will be, according to officials, the first to look at Welsby.

Welsby could command a three-year NRL contract worth $2.75m.

While the club is flush with money, St Helens would be expected to seek a transfer fee of around $1 million for 2025 but NRL clubs are confident they could reduce that figure to $500,000.

Jack Welsby kept the Panthers guessing. Picture: NRL Images

“What you’d do is sign him for 2026, ’27 and ’28 and then try and work hard to get him out of St Helens for 2025,” said one NRL official. “With a year to go, the NRL club would then pay St Helens a transfer fee.

“Clubs will look at signing him for three years from 2026 – announce it and not make any further statement – before starting to raise an early release with St Helens after 2024.

“St Helens might say: ‘He’s going next year anyway, we’ve had him for ’23 and ’24 so let’s allow him to go provided there’s a transfer fee paid’. He could be here in 20 months.”

St Helens are renowned for refusing players to leave early but if Welsby and the NRL club provoke hard enough, there is a feeling Saints would succumb.

Welsby has played 84 games for St Helens with many NRL scouts suggesting English players struggle in Australia unless they have played 100 to 125 games.

Another two seasons in Super League would allow an injury-free Welsby to increase his tally to 130 to 140 matches.

NRL officials claim clubs with fullbacks heading into the back-end of their careers could sign Welsby now and then wait for the Saints fullback to arrive in Australia in several years.

WCC man-of-the-match Jack Welsby. Picture: NRL Images

Canterbury management met with Saints officials late last week while Dolphins assistant Kristian Woolf is a former St Helens coach. St Helens know the importance of Welsby but are also aware of his desire to play in the NRL.

The club’s two-game tour of Australia for the WCC only increased Welsby’s ambition to play in the NRL.

“St Helens are well run and historically don’t sell players but every club in Super League needs the money,” said another NRL club official.

“Some of St Helens players are a bit twitchy. Many don’t believe English players can make it in Australia unless they have played 100, 125, 130 matches in the UK. The younger ones struggle.

“Welsby would be a great signing for a club with a fullback near the end of his career in two, three years’ time. If I was Parramatta, I’d get the deal done now. He could transition straight in for Gutherson.”

Another leading NRL club CEO said: “Welsby would make it out here. A lot of English backs don’t make the transition to the NRL but he would do it successfully.”

Welsby signed his St Helens contract extension in the middle of last year. Saints returned to England on Sunday.

$1m salary cap drain: True cost of Panthers’ success

This is the anguish you suffer for being NRL premiers.

Penrith chief executive Brian Fletcher has revealed the salary cap pain his club endures annually due their remarkable success – nearly $1 million a year.

Yet Fletcher has predicted his Panthers can still create history by claiming a third successive title this year.

Just hours after his side’s gripping golden point loss to St Helens in the World Club Challenge, Fletcher claimed his club’s heroics over the past three years meant having to slash a whopping $900,000 off their salary cap each year.

“We’re in a fortunate position - and we’re in an unfortunate position - because of our success,” Fletcher said.

The Panthers after getting knocked off by St Helens. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Retaining players and awarding upgrades for a star-studded squad forces Penrith, according to Fletcher, into recruitment decisions he labels as “disappointing”.

Over the past three years, since reaching the first of their three successive grand finals, Penrith has been watched as Josh Mansour, Viliame Kikau, Api Koroisau, Matt Burton, Kurt Capewell, Paul Momirovski, Charlie Staines and James Tamou have left with Stephen Crichton to depart after this year.

Success also means losing top juniors such as playmaking whiz kid Isaiya Katoa, who came through the ranks at Penrith, but will make his NRL debut for the Dolphins this season after he was snapped up by super coach Wayne Bennett.

“If you have success, you’ve got to shed about $800,000 to $900,000 each year in your cap because of upgrades for other players,” Fletcher said. “The players don’t like leaving and we don’t like losing them but that’s the system.

“This year, for instance, Api and Kikau went so we could balance the cap. What a team you’d have if you still had Api and Kikau here. Next year, Crichton goes.

“So based on that, if we have success in the next few years, the same problem will happen again. It would be roughly (shedding) $900,000 going forward under the new cap if you’re successful.

“The salary cap is here and you’ve got to play within the rules. You’d love to keep all the players and not have any salary cap but that wouldn’t be fair because there would only be three or four sides that would be competitive.

“If you’re successful the price of your other players keeps going up.

“At the end of ’24, we’ve got Liam Martin, Jarome Luai, Moses Leota, Dylan Edwards and Isaah Yeo all coming off contract and they’re not going to take the same price they are getting now if they have success again this year.

“Viliame lives in Penrith. He’d rather not be travelling to Belmore but playing at Penrith. We’re OK going forward at the moment because Steve Crichton has unfortunately gone, as much as would have loved to have kept him.

“If we kept Stephen, along with our upgrades, we’d be roughly $900,000 over the cap.”

Players coming off contract after 2023 and 2024 include Dylan Edwards, Matt Eisenhuth, Mitch Kenny, Moses Leota, Jarome Luai, Taylan May, Isaah Yeo, Liam Martin and Spencer Leniu.

Who is next to be forced out?

“The more success you have, the more other teams want to poach your players for big amounts of money,” Fletcher said.

Will Spencer Leniu leave the Panthers? Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty

“That’s our problem – the Bulldogs will offer Kikau and Crichton a fortune that we can’t match in our cap but they can in their cap. It’s disappointing but you’ve got to lose them.

“With success brings contract upgrades and players coming off contracts. These players go away and earn bigger money. That’s the system, we trust the system and we know we have to lose somebody each year.

“You’re never going to have an era like St George again, winning 11 in a row, because you lose players all the time. But we have played in three straight grand finals under that system.

“It is why you have to have young players like Taylan May and Izack Tago coming through. That’s why you have to have such a great pathway system. The team we have assembled over the last three years is young. That’s the beauty of it.”

Fletcher shot down talk that his side could not possibly secure a third successive title in 2023.

“They said the same thing last year – we couldn’t win back-to-back premierships and we did that,” he said.

“There’s no reason why we can’t do it three years in a row either. We have as good a chance as every other team in the comp so why can’t we do it? The players and coaches are very confident they can do it again.”