LEICESTER TIGERS 2023/24 - KANGAROO MCKELLER: Do you come from a land down under? (Squad thread pt 2)

[ay2oh]

Would be a bit disappointed if we have no more signings to come. Around 15 out and only 3 in doesn’t quite add up even with players getting improved contracts. Suspect 2 or 3 more to come.

[LE18]

Youngs was on his last podcast talking about how his season started 50 weeks ago, that's a long time with no downtime due to the world cup... It's pretty well proven that during the 6N break our S&C was not sufficient.

Youngs was ineligible for the PRC so he was never in the running for the Ealing game so he possibly had an extra break than anyone else pretty much.

I think post S&C issues being raised an older player can't bring it back either.

I think McKellar has probably said to Youngs he's bench reserve and not to worry till the new season an just come back with a preseason and have a decent rest

Ben needs to get down on that quay with missus and kids and get some crabbing done, that would give him a real break, hope I bump into them down there.

[TigerFeetSteve]

Others have said it before on here - I think Handré would benefit greatly from another distributor in the backline. Kelly is the closest we have to that, but he's by no means a playmaker. Kata, Perese and Moroni wouldn't offer that either.

Moroni is unlikely unless we lose someone to make cap space, as we are apparently spent up.

If we are at the cap level, some of our squad are earning too much.

We are definitely not finished announcing players.

What the club have said is they are spending the cap, they did not however say that all the signings have been announced.

100% coming a new centre
85% new fly half
Possibly a new lock or no.8
Real outside chance of a TH prop

We also have a few extensions to announce, plus who is signing from the Academy into the Senior Academy.

[Tigersunited]

I heard no further ‘significant’ incomings, that’s why I think it’s possible we could move some on to bring in the likes of Moroni.
Also heard from a Pal at Bristol, something I’d not considered, in that contracts need not be linear, he said some of their players had agreed deals over 2/3 years with low salary in season(s) when the cap was smaller and a big uplift in the season when the cap increases. I can’t imagine just one club would have this approach, so could be a factor..

[Tigersunited]

Moroni is unlikely unless we lose someone to make cap space, as we are apparently spent up.

If we are at the cap level, some of our squad are earning too much.

We are definitely not finished announcing players.

What the club have said is they are spending the cap, they did not however say that all the signings have been announced.

100% coming a new centre
85% new fly half
Possibly a new lock or no.8
Real outside chance of a TH prop

We also have a few extensions to announce, plus who is signing from the Academy into the Senior Academy.

However, following what I said, sounds like you’re better informed than I?

[RagingBull]

I heard no further ‘significant’ incomings, that’s why I think it’s possible we could move some on to bring in the likes of Moroni.
Also heard from a Pal at Bristol, something I’d not considered, in that contracts need not be linear, he said some of their players had agreed deals over 2/3 years with low salary in season(s) when the cap was smaller and a big uplift in the season when the cap increases. I can’t imagine just one club would have this approach, so could be a factor..

Pretty sure the cap is spread out as an average so clubs can’t front or back load them.

Granted they can sign new deals but won’t be contractually obligated to sign or be offered a increased rate

[TigerFeetSteve]

If we are at the cap level, some of our squad are earning too much.

We are definitely not finished announcing players.

What the club have said is they are spending the cap, they did not however say that all the signings have been announced.

100% coming a new centre
85% new fly half
Possibly a new lock or no.8
Real outside chance of a TH prop

We also have a few extensions to announce, plus who is signing from the Academy into the Senior Academy.

However, following what I said, sounds like you’re better informed than I?

Not sure about better informed, heard from a few places that we have a centre to announce.

Fly half, not heard any rumours of, but can't see us going into a season where Pollard may be away for the first few weeks and Shillcock is the only option.

Then it's on to possibles, we've definitely spoken to other no.8's and props, now that was before announcing Beets and Smith, so that may well be it there, but possibly could be space for more.

[Tigersunited]

I heard no further ‘significant’ incomings, that’s why I think it’s possible we could move some on to bring in the likes of Moroni.
Also heard from a Pal at Bristol, something I’d not considered, in that contracts need not be linear, he said some of their players had agreed deals over 2/3 years with low salary in season(s) when the cap was smaller and a big uplift in the season when the cap increases. I can’t imagine just one club would have this approach, so could be a factor..

Pretty sure the cap is spread out as an average so clubs can’t front or back load them.

Granted they can sign new deals but won’t be contractually obligated to sign or be offered a increased rate

Without trying to sound rude, do you know this for sure? My friend is very well informed and was pretty adamant about this ‘back loading’ I’m not sure how you could average the cap, surely it’s the amount paid in wages in that season, with clubs choosing to have an advantage one season, disadvantage another.

[Tiglon]

I heard no further ‘significant’ incomings, that’s why I think it’s possible we could move some on to bring in the likes of Moroni.
Also heard from a Pal at Bristol, something I’d not considered, in that contracts need not be linear, he said some of their players had agreed deals over 2/3 years with low salary in season(s) when the cap was smaller and a big uplift in the season when the cap increases. I can’t imagine just one club would have this approach, so could be a factor..

Pretty sure the cap is spread out as an average so clubs can’t front or back load them.

Granted they can sign new deals but won’t be contractually obligated to sign or be offered a increased rate

Without trying to sound rude, do you know this for sure? My friend is very well informed and was pretty adamant about this ‘back loading’ I’m not sure how you could average the cap, surely it’s the amount paid in wages in that season, with clubs choosing to have an advantage one season, disadvantage another.

As I understand it, all players must be on the "standard form contract". This is a template contract that does not appear to give any opportunity to allow for differing salary from year to year - there is simply one space to write the annual salary.

There is a line for bonus though, I'm not sure how much room there is for clubs to be creative with this.

[Goshengareth]

That is exceptionally prescriptive and limiting.

[sam16111986]

That is exceptionally prescriptive and limiting.

I believe that's the point.

Generally the accounting principle is to average the cost of contracts over their length so they could just be following that.

[RagingBull]

I heard no further ‘significant’ incomings, that’s why I think it’s possible we could move some on to bring in the likes of Moroni.
Also heard from a Pal at Bristol, something I’d not considered, in that contracts need not be linear, he said some of their players had agreed deals over 2/3 years with low salary in season(s) when the cap was smaller and a big uplift in the season when the cap increases. I can’t imagine just one club would have this approach, so could be a factor..

Pretty sure the cap is spread out as an average so clubs can’t front or back load them.

Granted they can sign new deals but won’t be contractually obligated to sign or be offered a increased rate

Without trying to sound rude, do you know this for sure? My friend is very well informed and was pretty adamant about this ‘back loading’ I’m not sure how you could average the cap, surely it’s the amount paid in wages in that season, with clubs choosing to have an advantage one season, disadvantage another.

A literal player agent told me.

Granted it was a years ago and the cap laws change, as do loopholes etc

The only time I have seen different is when the cap went down and Prem rugby allow 75% of existing contracts to be counted towards the cap, so you had clubs in a mass rush to sign them on mass.
Exeter and Bristol especially did this.

These contracts had to be either one or two years deals and you had a deadline to add a plus one option on top to make it free.

And Bristol made a mistake, missed that final deadline and they ended having to find 400K cap space free last season due to it. Resulting in them losing like 5 players in the off season they didn’t want to lose. Atwood, Frisch etc. also cost Taintan his job pretty much

Mind your source at Bristol won’t need to worry about the cap in general since they aren’t spending up to it anymore

[RagingBull]

That is exceptionally prescriptive and limiting.

Isn’t the entire concept of a salary cap limiting?

[TigerFeetSteve]

Pretty sure the cap is spread out as an average so clubs can’t front or back load them.

Granted they can sign new deals but won’t be contractually obligated to sign or be offered a increased rate

Without trying to sound rude, do you know this for sure? My friend is very well informed and was pretty adamant about this ‘back loading’ I’m not sure how you could average the cap, surely it’s the amount paid in wages in that season, with clubs choosing to have an advantage one season, disadvantage another.

As I understand it, all players must be on the "standard form contract". This is a template contract that does not appear to give any opportunity to allow for differing salary from year to year - there is simply one space to write the annual salary.

There is a line for bonus though, I'm not sure how much room there is for clubs to be creative with this.

This is why Tommy Reffell who is likely on a long term rolling contract will be in for a BIG pay rise once he hits 25 caps and gets his first pay rise since the Covid renegotiations of everyone

[Old Hob]

Rob Baxter saying that, with his youngsters coming through, Chiefs do not use their full cap.