Potential Jack de Belin ban would close Dragons’ premiership window
With talk the Dragons will be offered a $600,000 salary cap kick-back to help alleviate the loss of Jack de Belin, Paul Crawley looks at the football and financial impact on the club going forward.
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Many of the game’s best judges were thinking St George Illawarra were the best hope of stopping the Sydney Roosters winning back-to-back titles this season.
Not anymore.
You can’t lose a NSW Origin starting forward like Jack de Belin this close to the start of a season and expect to compete with the very best teams over the course of a 25-round regular season followed by a month of finals football.
The salary cap simply doesn’t allow it.
It is like the Roosters losing Boyd Cordner for the season, South Sydney Sam Burgess or North Queensland Jason Taumalolo.
Some might argue de Belin is not yet in that absolute top tier of NRL forwards.
But it is worth remembering Brad Fittler thought so highly of de Belin last year that he started him ahead of Jake Trbojevic in the Blues’ series victory.
Yes, the Dragons will get a salary cap kick-back, believed to be around $600,000, to ease the pain while de Belin fights his aggravated sexual assault charge in court.
But a fat lot of good that is really going to do.
While it at least allows recruitment boss Ian Millward to go searching the marketplace, as Parramatta discovered just last week through their failed attempt to poach George Burgess from Souths, it is one thing to have money to spend and an entirely different matter finding a player worthy of that sort of coin this close to the start of the season.
And there’s another issue that has so far been overlooked.
Even if the Dragons happen to find a suitable replacement, this still has the potential to destroy their salary cap for possibly the next two seasons.
No top-line NRL player signs a contract for a single season unless they are damaged goods, or coming to the end of their career.
So even if de Belin is found not guilty and allowed to return to the NRL later this season, or next year, that will leave the Dragons with a giant salary cap headache going forward.
Not only that, but the Dragons will still have to pay de Belin, so the club will have to come up with extra money they probably don’t have to spend, especially in this current corporate climate where sponsors are running for cover.
Of the names being tossed up so far, there is talk Sam Kasiano is on the outer at Melbourne and Patrick Kaufusi might be available.
Neither are in de Belin’s league, and would either even consider committing to a one-year deal?
Same with Cronulla’s Jayson Bukuya or Ava Seumanufagai.
The club can look from within and pray de Belin gets back on the field sooner rather than later.
Youngsters Blake Lawrie and Josh Kerr show promise but again, they are not ready to fill de Belin’s boots.
The most likely option available to Paul McGregor would be to push Tyson Frizell into the middle and give Luciano Leilua the right edge.
Again, while Leilua is a hot young talent, the Dragons will not be a better team without de Belin.
And in a competition as close as the NRL, where only one win separated the top eight teams last year, that could well shut the door on any premiership window, even before it really opened.
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