Paul Kent: Dean Pay walked out on the Bulldogs with his dignity
Dean Pay watched his club let seven internationals walk out the door and got a death sentence in return. The board gave Pay no chance to coach his way out of the problems the club was facing, PAUL KENT writes.
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Dignity took a walk at the Bulldogs on Monday.
It started on Sunday when Bulldogs chief executive Andrew Hill called coach Dean Pay. It might have been the afternoon but, in times like this, when lives change, certain things become a bit fuzzy.
“I gave you my personal commitment I would never talk to anyone without calling you,” Hill said, and with that Hill began the conversation everyone knew was coming.
Managers, their noses twitching, had begun calling the Bulldogs about the coaching job even though Pay was fighting through this season with a hope for next season, but the pursuit from the managers meant the Bulldogs could no longer leave it alone.
They got Pay at a vulnerable time.
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The talk had been around for weeks now and Pay was living through it each week with no end seemingly in sight and the club, battling, decided to let them in.
Already Trent Barrett is said to be days away from signing with the Bulldogs.
What Barrett is thinking is hard to see.
He resigned at Manly, a club with Jake and Tom Trbojevic, with Daly Cherry-Evans and Marty Tapau and Addin Fonua-Blake, saying the job was not what he signed on for after the club failed to deliver certain promises.
Yet he now shows interest in a club now famous for hollow promises and the inability to deliver.
Canterbury is currently a club where boardroom meetings are conducted at 30 paces and where the roster is threadbare. Kieran Foran, when he is healthy, and Josh Jackson, whenever he wants, were the only two players who could comfortably walk into the starting side of most opposition teams before Luke Thompson arrived last week.
Most would consider the full-strength Manly roster considerably healthier than the Bulldogs as Des Hasler, the coach who went the other way, is showing.
Yet Barrett is young and ambitious, which can be as dangerous as it is admirable.
Some might say Pay was young and ambitious when he took the Canterbury job on a platform to return some of the old Canterbury DNA lost since his own playing days at the club.
When Pay took over Canterbury was a club under salary cap pressure, brought about by a series of back-ended contracts that left the club nearly $1 million over the cap his first season in, with a new board and rookie administration to try to navigate a way out of it.
Major surgery was needed to make the Dogs cap compliable.
James Graham was released to St George Illawarra before Pay’s first season. Aaron Woods was released to Cronulla early, David Klemmer to Newcastle and Moses Mbye shuffled along as well.
Brett Morris and Josh Morris both approached Pay asking for a release. They were nearing the end of their careers and had had enough and, anyway, they wanted to spend their winter days vying for a title, not rebuilding a club.
All are internationals except for Moses, who played State of Origin last year out of Wests Tigers.
Pay watched the club move them on and got a death sentence in return, a victim of the club’s ongoing boardroom politics.
Battling for boardroom control, the backroom politics froze Pay from going to market and gave him no chance to coach his way out of the problems the boardroom factions created, which must come as a stark warning for Barrett.
Some will say Pay succeeded returning the old Bulldog fight to his club and that, in fact, it might be all the club still has.
Pay was never really given a chance.
He watched the club move on most of his best talent and replace them with lower grade kids on minimal contracts. The biggest signing was Dylan Napa, and only after the Roosters agreed to carry some of his contract on their cap.
He wanted to sign Josh Reynolds to bring experience to his halves this season.
Reynolds was identified as Exhibit A in the Dogs struggles this year, the Dogs said to have rejected a potential return even though he would have cost as little as $100,000.
Reynolds is on $875,000 at Wests Tigers and he was interested in returning to Canterbury for this season and next season.
The true figure was closer to $400,000 a season. A figure acceptable this season but not next season, when the Dogs want to open their war chest and go to market.
The chance to catch next season without the cap liability was the promise that kept Pay going, which ultimately the club reneged on.
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So Sunday drifted into Monday and the outside interest intensified.
Pay was not sacked, just told he was still a chance to be coaching next season but that the club thought it fair they listen to outside interest.
Pay, who is no fool, saw through that.
I’m not your whipping boy, he thought, and, with that, dignity walked out of the Bulldogs.