Twenty years ago, in 2005, a young Johnathan Thurston defected from the Bulldogs to the Cowboys on a deal worth around $250,000 a year. At the time, the salary cap was $3.36 million.
Ten years later, in 2015, the best young player in the game at the time – Anthony Milford – would depart the Raiders on a deal with the Broncos worth around $600,000 per annum. The cap had almost doubled to $6.55 million.
As the opening round of the 2025 season came to a close, it was hijacked on Monday by the news of Dylan Brown’s deal with the Newcastle Knights. A record 10-year deal of somewhere between $13-$14 million.
On the surface, it seems reckless from the Knights. It was irresponsible, according to Paul Gallen on Nine’s 100% Footy on Monday night.
But over the past two decades, the salary cap has almost doubled every 10 years. It currently sits at $11.8 million.
Perhaps the $1.4 million a 35-year-old Brown stands to earn in 2035 isn’t as crazy as it sounds?
Dylan Brown is on his way to Newcastle.Credit: Getty
There’s no doubt Newcastle are paying overs for Brown in the early years of that deal. You’d be surprised if Brown didn’t agree with that notion.
All the good judges, including Newcastle’s very own Johns brothers, tell you Brown is a five-eighth. A dynamic runner of the ball, not the runner of a team.
You pay those types of players $800,000-$900,000. The $1.2 million plus deals are reserved for players like Mitchell Moses and Nathan Cleary.
Sources with knowledge of the situation talking on the condition of anonymity due to confidentiality told the Herald that Brown’s contract includes mutual options in the later stages of a deal that gives the club the ability to have some control over how much they pay him.
Knights recruiter Peter O’Sullivan during his time at the Dolphins.Credit: Stan
At its peak, the Knights won’t have to pay Brown more than $1.4 million a season. That may be well above market value in the first few years, but it may be significantly less by the last few years considering the best players in the game are on track to earn more than $2 million come the end of this decade.
The deal is the brainchild of recruitment manager Peter O’Sullivan, who arrived at Newcastle from the Dolphins mid-way through last year.
He was hailed as the piece of the puzzle being brought in to save the Knights, and he didn’t waste any time putting the players on notice.
Daniel Saifiti, Jayden Brailey and Jackson Hastings were among the players told that they are welcome to explore opportunities elsewhere.
Nothing was off the table. O’Sullivan even considered whether to move on Ponga on account of his hefty price tag. He quickly moved on from that idea.
O’Sullivan saw a need to refresh the roster, making it known to everyone at Newcastle that those who came before him had created a huge mess.
The roster overhaul that O’Sullivan has been looking to execute at the Knights has proven difficult in his first six months.
The major blemish on his half-yearly report card was the club’s inability to keep prop Leo Thompson, who will head to Canterbury in 2026 because he believes the Bulldogs are closer to a premiership than the Knights – a notion that only 12 months earlier would have been ridiculed.
Eels young guns Blaize Talagi and Dylan Brown.Credit: Getty
O’Sullivan also went hard at Blaize Talagi, whose manager Isaac Moses was involved in negotiations to get O’Sullivan to the Knights. That relationship didn’t yield a result for O’Sullivan with Penrith snaring the signature of the Eels rookie.
O’Sullivan also chased Melbourne’s Jonah Pezet with a big-money offer but was unable to lure the Newcastle junior back home, with the 22-year-old instead choosing to remain as a backup to Jahrome Hughes over a No.7 jersey at the Knights.
Sharks prop Tom Hazelton was offered big money to ditch Cronulla but chose to re-sign with the Sharks, while young gun Seb Sua has requested an immediate release after signing with the Dolphins for next year.
The string of misses would have stung a man who is often portrayed in the media as the recruitment guru of rugby league.
Parramatta’s Dylan Brown on the attack against Newcastle in the trials.Credit: Getty Images
O’Sullivan would have been determined not to miss out again when he set his sights on a player he’s long admired and who he previously tried to sign during his tenure at the Warriors.
Brown was made an offer that was too good to refuse, even though he may have wanted to.
Despite what you might be reading from fans on social media, there is no animosity towards Brown from the Eels.
Instead, a sense of sadness that a player, who left his family behind in New Zealand as a 15-year-old to join the Eels, will be walking out the door at season’s end.
Not a bitterness, but an appreciation that if they were in Brown’s shoes, they too would be taking the money on the table.
That’s not to suggest Parramatta’s offer was anything to be sneezed at. His current deal, however riddled it may be with options, meant that he stood to earn close to $1.1 million a season for the next six years.
It’s the second-longest deal in the NRL behind Gold Coast Titans representative forward Tino Fa’asuamaleaui. A whopping $6.6 million over six years. However, it’s almost the identical amount he would’ve left on the table had he shunned the Knights.
That’s a lot of money for anyone, let alone a kid who by his own admission grew up in modest housing in a humble New Zealand town where some of his friends went to school with no shoes.
If there is a sense of disappointment from the Eels, it’s the timing of the deal. Had they known Brown was leaving they could’ve done more than just offer Blaize Talagi the No.1 jersey that has since been vacated byClint Gutherson. The No.6 jersey he coveted would have been his.
Mitchell Moses embraces Dylan Brown.Credit: Getty
The Eels only have themselves to blame for that. Safe to say you won’t see many Eels players with options in their favour anytime soon.
The club had to recently upgrade and extend halfback Mitchell Moses’ contract to convince him to remove the options from his contract, agreeing to terms on a deal that catapults him close to the top – if not the No.1 position – on the list of the NRL’s highest-paid players.
Moses is at the peak of his powers. Some would argue he’s the second-best player in the game behind future Immortal and Penrith’s $1.2 million captain, Nathan Cleary (imagine what he would be worth on the open market).
It’s another reason why Brown’s departure hasn’t been met with angst out Parramatta way. There’s a realisation that this is Moses’ team. Retaining Brown would have meant that $2.5 million of their salary cap (approximately 20 per cent) would have been tied up in their halves.
Brown’s departure gives Ryles the chance to reshape his roster knowing that his No.7 is more than capable of steering the team around the paddock with a not-so-shiny halves partner.
It gives Parramatta the opportunity to find a No.9, bolster their forward pack and add spark to a backline that is hardly striking fear into their opposition.
For Newcastle, attention will now turn to Ponga. After all, the Brown deal was done with one eye on providing the fullback with a reason to stay beyond the end of his deal which expires in 2027.
The whispers have been growing louder in recent months that Ponga is beginning to get cold feet at the Knights. That perhaps his best years are being wasted at the Knights. The Sydney Roosters, as always, are in the background ready to pounce.
They know a little something about offers you can’t refuse. O’Sullivan, who spent eight years at the Roosters, knows that better than most.
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