Fair points, but they would still need to have a significant number of senior players on average to below average contracts though or there would need to be some excellent third party agreements going on, because the salaries paid to the top few players would be out of proportion compared to all other clubs.
Their list position is not too dissimilar to many other clubs. Brisbane have 18 players that fit that criteria. Adelaide have 15. Geelong have 14. Hawks have 13. Eagles have 13. Richmond have 12. Port have 16. Surely they too should be able to fork out a significant portion of their cap on a handful of players.
It would be interesting to see the books. If its all above board, then superdooper. I just don't trust the AFL to not blur the lines when it comes to the teams in NSW given the necessity for their expansion mandate to be successful.
Absolutely, but really thats not much different to most teams that find themselves in an extended premiership window. Hawks and Freo would be exactly the same, Geelong would have had the same when they were at their peak. I know for a fact that Brisbane had a number of guys who were getting paid significantly under during our premiership era, from memory Darryl White was being paid about $150K a season for a while there and he wasn't the only one. Fact is that being a side that's competing for premierships buys you a heck of a lot of loyalty and goodwill as far as wages go, thats for sure but there are always risks involved. Once again Brisbane being the prime example in the fact that back ended contracts and list profile holes left us in a massive mess from about 2005/06 onwards. Sure it was exaggerated by the end of 2009 activity but the underlying issue was still there well before that and its one we're still trying to get out of. Now other sides (aka Geelong) have learnt from our example and have made the tough decisions we didn't. Whether Sydney becomes the former or latter will be interesting.
Lets not forget that Buddy's contract was ridiculous mainly for the term of it. Sure he gets a lot of money but it was the years that got him over the line. It will catch up to Sydney eventually, but it was a ballsy call with more than a little bit of crystal ball gazing and fingers crossed built into it.
As for the thing on forking out a significant portion of the cap, take Bris for an example once more. Everyone knows we've got a tonne of cap space, but having space and being able to actually use it can be two different things. Its further complicated by this artificial marketplace that the 95% mandate has created. In no world is Brisbane or Carlton's list worth 95% of Sydney's, Hawthorns or Freo's but that is the what the rule mandates, therefore there are always going to be situations where we sit here and go "WTF how do hawks, sydney etc pay only 5% more and keep there players?" Is it because they're fudging books or underpaying guys? or is it because we're overpaying? In reality if I was in charge of Bris with our list right now i'd be dissappointed if I was paying 90% of our cap right now, but the rule is there so we tend to overpay.