The way the Sydney Roosters manage their salary cap has left the other 15 clubs and their fans often scratching their heads wondering how the Bondi club can fit so much talent in their squad playing by the same rules as everyone else.
With Cooper Cronk and James Tedesco on board for 2018 and young gun Angus Crichton signing on for a reportedly big money deal in 2019, the questions keep getting asked.
Well,ย Roosters chairman Nick Politis has explained how the club manages to do it and it's quite simple really.
They are just better at it.
"We plan five years ahead with our recruitment," Politis said in an interview with Fairfax Media.
"We run our salary cap better than most clubs. We don't back-end contracts, we don't put in ratchet clauses that stymie some clubs. We don't have many third-party agreements. We make some hard calls. We don't always get it right but we correct them quickly.
"The bottom line is there are 10 to 12 players we let go in the last 12 months, and one very expensive one was Pearcey, who covers Cronk. We also had $600,000 left from 2016."
When that figure is added to the substantial bump in the salary cap for 2018, Politis wonders why other clubs aren't flush with cash to spend.
"The salary cap went up by $2 million โ you don't have to be Einstein to work it out," he said.
"Every club should have spare cash. It was a fair increase. I don't understand how some clubs don't have enough left."
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