As he sauntered towards Redfern Oval for the meeting that would seal the fate of the world’s best prop, a familiar figure drew the attention of the agent.
“There was this bloke sitting on the bench just up from the club,” recalls Mark Rowan.
“It was almost 20 years ago, but I still remember it to this day. All he said was, ‘Whatever it takes’.”
The bloke on the bench was Russell Crowe. It was 2006, Crowe had just become the co-owner of South Sydney, and the Gladiator star was desperate for a marquee signing who could transform the fortunes of the battling Bunnies.
It wasn’t just enough to sign a good footballer. What was required was a statement to the rugby league world: that the Rabbitohs were truly back, that the best players from the best clubs were again proud to wear the cardinal and myrtle.
And Roy Asotasi was that man. Whatever it takes.
“The good thing was that Russell wanted him,” says Rowan, Asotasi’s long-time manager. “I’ve learnt that what Russell wants, Russell gets.”
Dylan Brown was all smiles at training on Wednesday – and why wouldn’t he be after agreeing the biggest deal in NRL history.Credit: Sam Mooy
What it took was a five-year, $2.55 million deal to prise him out of Canterbury. Given the salary cap was just $3.37 million at the time, it meant spending more than 15 per cent of South Sydney’s salary cap on a single player.
No club had ever invested so much on a prop forward for such a length of time, making it just as controversial a signing at the time as the death-or-glory 10-year, $14 million gamble that Newcastle have just taken on Parramatta pivot Dylan Brown. Only in the fullness of time will it become apparent whether the Knights made a shrewd investment or pulverised their salary cap for a generation.
History will look kindly on the Asotasi investment. He never wanted to leave, but the Bulldogs were short on funds and didn’t want to table an offer that would insult the Kiwi international.
“Canterbury kept saying to me, ‘We can’t match that sort of money,’” Rowan recalls. “Roy just wanted to get an offer from them. To be honest, if they had offered him $250,000, he would have taken it.”
Roy Asotasi changed the culture at South Sydney after he signed in 2006 when the club was at rock bottom.Credit: Getty Images
While financially lucrative, the switch came at a cost. The wins didn’t come as often as they had at Belmore, but his presence helped attract other stars to the Pride of the League. The signatures of Nigel Vagana, Dean Widders and Michael Crocker soon followed, and in the ensuing years Sam Burgess and Greg Inglis made the leap.
A year after Asotasi finished up at the club, Souths won the 2014 premiership, ending a 43-year title drought. It wouldn’t have happened without him.
“I don’t know if it paved the way, but that was the start of it,” Rowan says of the long-term deals that have subsequently become a regular feature in the league.
Not all of them have such a happy ending. Three years before the Asotasi deal, Rowan brokered a five-year Canterbury contract extension for Brent Sherwin. The premiership-winning halfback didn’t see out the deal, but the most significant knock-on effect was that the club couldn’t afford to retain another young half that was coming through the ranks.
His name was Johnathan Thurston.
Johnathan Thurston holds the premiership trophy aloft in 2015. The Bulldogs could not afford to keep him after Brent Sherwin signed a monster deal in 2003.Credit: Getty Images
The game is littered with other cautionary tales, but they haven’t stopped clubs from taking increasingly bigger and longer gambles on star players.
The Brown punt is the biggest of them all. It was brokered by brothers Chris and Gavin Orr of Pacific Sports Management [PSM], an agency renowned for negotiating long-term deals for its clients.
“Everyone has an opinion, but at the end of the day, he plays in the spine, he’s played at the highest level for his country and he’s 24 years of age,” Gavin says.
“There’s not a lot of Dylan Browns around. So why wouldn’t you invest in someone when there’s not a lot around in his position?
“It’s a smart bet. They can give your club a lot of stability and bring other players to the club.
“People were also [critical] when Kalyn Ponga signed at Newcastle, and he had a few injuries. At the end of the day, he’s proved a lot of people wrong.”
Jason Taumalolo has been a colossus for the Cowboys, but he’s still got nearly three years to run on his monster deal and is spending less and less time on the field.Credit: Getty Images
PSM were also the architects of a 10-year, $10 million Cowboys contract for Jason Taumalolo in 2017. The club was undeniably getting value for money in the initial years of the contract – he has won the club’s player of the year award on six occasions – but the combination of playing in the middle of the field with an ageing body, in a game that is being played at a faster pace, has resulted in the big forward’s average minutes reducing to just 39.
Whether Taumalolo is still providing value for money in his later years – his contract doesn’t expire until the end of 2027 – remains to be seen.
Another PSM deal of note was the “lifetime” contract negotiated for Cherry-Evans at Manly. It was brokered at a time when the Sea Eagles were in turmoil: Kieran Foran had defected to Parramatta and it appeared they would lose both their star halves when Cherry-Evans accepted a rich deal to join the Gold Coast.
Then-Manly football supremo Bob Fulton negotiated what was dubbed a $10 million “lifetime” deal, one DCE accepted before the 10-day cooling-off period expired.
While it hasn’t resulted in a premiership for the club or a Dally M Medal for Cherry-Evans, by every other measure the deal has been a resounding success for both parties.
Daly Cherry-Evans’ long-term deal at Manly has been a raging success, for the club and the player. But they don’t always work out well.Credit: Getty Images
“It was a big call, it was certainly the longest at the time,” says Manly chairman Scott Penn. “In the end it was the right call.
“You can’t predict the future, you can’t predict 10 years out. For us, it was based on character, and we knew ‘Chez’ was an honourable person who always puts the club first.
“We always knew he was going to be a future leader of the club, so we backed him. And it’s worked out for everyone, thankfully.
“Any long-term deal is a call you have to make on the facts you have at the time. Obviously Newcastle are making a call on what they need [with Brown] and what they see their future structure being.
“If everyone goes in with their eyes open, it usually works. The truth is you need a bit of luck, but it’s about the character of the individual as well.
“It’s good money – it comes with a lot of pressure. The target is on you to perform week in, week out because everyone knows what kind of money they are on.
“The good thing is Chez loves pressure, he relishes it. We also know from a character perspective that he is just such a consummate professional, such a competitor, that he would never let us down.”
In Brown and Cherry-Evans’ favour, they are playing in spine positions, where they have the best opportunity to influence the outcome of games while avoiding much of the grunt work done in the engine room.
However, some clubs continue to throw long-term deals at middle forwards, despite the increased risk of injury. A case in point is the mammoth 10-year, $12.5 million contract the Gold Coast handed Tino Fa’asuamaleaui.
Tino Fa’asuamaleaui suffered a serious injury not long after signing his mega deal.Credit: Getty Images
It was offered at a time when the Titans were under enormous pressure: they had just sacked Justin Holbrook as their coach, a move that allowed Fa’asuamaleaui and fellow superstar forward David Fifita the option to leave immediately.
The prospect of new mentor Des Hasler starting life on the glitter strip without his two biggest stars was an unpalatable one. Hasler ultimately retained the dynamic duo, but at a huge cost.
“It’s a very big show of faith,” says Fa’asuamaleaui’s manager, Simon Mammino. “Tino is not your normal player either. The club probably would have preferred it to be a bit less, but they wanted Tino. We haggled over the years and in the end we got it to 10.”
The new partnership got off to an inauspicious start; Fa’asuamaleaui ruptured his ACL three rounds into the 2024 season. Sunday’s clash against Canterbury marks his NRL return.
“From a player’s and agent’s point of view, you look for that security,” Mammino says. “It could work out to be a bad deal in time, but I’m thinking not. The way Tino is, the way he looks after his body … I’m pretty confident Tino will punch on until his mid-30s.
“If they had lost Tino, where would that have left the club? The timing was right to do a deal.”
Which brings us to Brown. Given he remains committed to Parramatta for the remainder of the season, the Knights haven’t publicly commented on his signing.
Privately, they felt the risk of doing nothing was greater than that of throwing the kitchen sink at him. There is every likelihood that the Newcastle officials who did the deal won’t be around when it finally expires in a decade.
Only then will we know if they produced a masterstroke or left a mess for someone else to clean up.
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