Three young talents were given million dollar deals, the risk hasn’t paid off, writes Robert Craddock
BEN Hunt, Anthony Milford and Ash Taylor have all wobbled under the pressure of million dollar deals, and in Mal Meninga lies a perfect contrast in why the offers were littered in risk, writes Robert Craddock.
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MAL Meninga was rugby league’s first $100,000 man and Kevin Walters still remembers the day the ceiling shattered.
Walters often tells the story of being gobsmacked by the sight of all those zeros lined up on the back page of the paper one cold Canberra morning in the late 1980s when he and Meninga were Raiders teammates.
“Moneybags Mal’’ duly copped his routine sledges at training for his $100,000-a-year contract with Canberra but they had all the imprint of a raindrop on a roof tile.
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Because he’d earned it. He and the game were ready for it. He had played for Queensland for a decade, for Australia for six seasons and was well settled at Canberra.
The payment was half recognition for what he had done and half for what he was expected to do. It seemed right. Onwards and upwards he went.
Thirty years on Meninga has several threads that provide insight into the reasons why three young men who have an extra zero of their contracts to his mega-deal with Canberra have had their issues this season.
Ben Hunt (Dragons), Anthony Milford (the Broncos) and Ash Taylor (the Titans) have all wobbled under the pressure of million dollar deals this year.
In real estate terms the $100,000 contract with Meninga was like buying a four bedroom home on 32 perches in Ascot. The hard work was done.
But the million bucks forked out for the three youngsters was like buying off the plan when the slab’s been poured but you are still not totally sure what you are getting and spent your life asking questions.
If Meninga had a quiet game his contract fee was never an issue.
But when you are a work in progress, like the off-the-plan projects, you become haunted by your salary.
Hunt, Milford and Taylor will know they truly belong in the millionaire’s club when, like say Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith, their salary is never mentioned.
Thurston and Smith have been millionaire players for years but when do you hear their salary mentioned?
But Google “Anthony Milford’’ and “million dollars’’ and you get 513,000 items. That’s a surprise. It seems more.
“People expect a lot from them,’’ Walters said. “They are all young and there is no doubt they have the ability and as they mature they will learn to manage those expectations. They just have to work until they get there.’’
Hunt’s wife last week lashed the media for lashing her husband. Milford has been miraculous at times and mediocre at others, sometimes all in the same game.
Taylor has been all shades amid rumours that he needs a mentor on the field and in life in general.
Life seems such a serious business for all of them. Even when they are not been targeted directly they are, in a way, still a part of the discussion, as they were the other night when Phil Gould discussed how having a million dollar player (or two) on your books made managing the salary cap so challenging.
All of the three have found that money has given them security, but the search for true contentment continues.
Occasionally a new wall will be sighted on the slab but they are still some way from being the four bedroom house on 32 perches.
Originally published as Three young talents were given million dollar deals, the risk hasn’t paid off, writes Robert Craddock