I reckon $250k extra will be a god send to bottom two sides and don’t forget not all sides currently are on salary edge. A few purposely ensure that there is money in case they have to upgrade. They are the good clubs.

Doing away with 3rd party deals would fix this.

Unfashionable clubs can't attract the sponsors so have to pay the full tote (more cap space) whilst the likes of the Roosters, Broncos etc have people falling over themselves to be involved, thus players accept less but have good top ups outside the cap.

Watching the Rabbits over the past few weeks, it will be interesting how Bennett can spark their attack.

Ever since the SOO, their attack has been never reached the heights of earlier rounds. Walker seems a shadow of the early rounds and the forwards are not as fluent as they used to be.

There is a chance with 3 rounds left with games against Brisbane (A), Warriors (A) and Roosters (H), they will be struggling to make top 4.

I agree re Souths being busted, they just seem devoid of attacking options recently.

Manly and Parramatta have a great chance of sneaking into top 4. Hasler has being put up as coach of the year but Arthur with almost a side of no names should be in the mix too.

There are rumblings that another coach will fall by the wayside if their team does not finish season well. The only thing saving him is that he is in rough contention and there are not that many attractive options around as a replacement.

The boys will fire up but we’re massively under strength and size.
I’m afraid the big broncos pack will steamroll through us

What a game. My boys are back. Great effort

Jeunes, they were pathetic. You’d think they had a lot to play for but I can’t seriously believe they ranked it

Brennan and Brown gone.

Rumour is one more coach will go but all depends if the board is prepared to pay out the contract.

At the start of the year there were a few clubs who wanted their coaches to make the top 8 to survive.

Newcastle and Gold Coast were the only ones to go through with that plan.

Parramatta were an aberration as they made a great start and the top 8 so Arthur received an extension. Mail was Stuart was under slight pressure to go better than last year which he did so well.

The others in question were Pay, Kearney, Macgregor and Green. The boards in some of these clubs extended their contracts as they felt there was no one better or got sold a long term vision.

If sacked some of these coaches have 1-2 years of payouts left so these clubs have to decided between a $1m settlement plus another coach who will want a 3 year contract with no guarantee of success.

Someone I know at one of these clubs said the risk is if they sack the coach is their replacement. No one jumps out as potential replacements eg Griffin, Flanagan and Toovey have experience but left their previous clubs involuntarily. The rookie coaches are an unknown quantity too. The other issue is the backlash from fans regarding the waste of money if they have to pay out contracts for failures.

The coaches also don’t want to leave as there are not many options for them other than England or assistant coach.

WOD, some clubs are shying away from coaches that have been punted or feel can not relate to players or coaches who ask for long term deals or asking price too high.

Not sure if the two you mentioned fall in the above categories or they just wanted someone new to Australia.

Griffin would have been good for the knights. O’Brien might do the same. Griffin was considered tough by his players and not sure how much of that is because some players have been allowed to get away with a few things in the past as he stops that.

Also interestingly some of the big name coaches are asking for 3-5 year deals with no performance indicators until a 2 year lapse. This is more due to the rosters they inherit and salary cap issues.

Broncos are lucky to qualify for the finals. They need a half.

Raiders were too arrogant when they rested some of their players yesterday.

Roosters v Rabbits will be a great game as both will be licking their wounds from last week.

Don’t underrate the raiders too. I do think the Rabbits and Storm will win next weekend.

I'm not underrating them-just that they weren't as impressive as the other three.

I do agree partially. Rabbits were never in it as go forward was crap and it was one of their worst ever. Sharks mentally looked fatigued while broncos were an embarrassment.

Storm threw what they had all game against the raiders. Saying that I think a few of the Storm players were reliant on their team mates than themselves.