NRL help Gold Coast Titans pursue code jumper Karmichael Hunt PETER BADEL EXCLUSIVE

[DIEHARD]

Not about to turn the love on for Hunt but if there's a choice between the Sook & the turn coat I'll take the Kiwi-Queenslander , he will bring people through the gates where as the other will keep Qld Health guessing..

QueeNZlander.

[K2G]

The Gold Coast Titans will have to battle Queensland Red for the services of Karmichael Hunt

PAUL MALONE | THE COURIER-MAIL | AUGUST 22, 2014 12:00AM



GOLD Coast Titans look like having to wage their uphill battle against the Queensland Reds for Karmichael Hunt’s services without meaningful help from the NRL.

An NRL spokesman said on Thursday that the League “would not go into specifics’’ when asked if Gold Coast Suns player Hunt was considered a player deemed worthy of a discretionary marquee player allowance by chief executive Dave Smith.

The Courier-Mail reported on Thursday that NRL head of football Todd Greenberg had had talks with the Titans about ways of finding salary cap assistance in bringing Hunt back to the NRL.

The NRL spokesman said the NRL would consider using the marquee player allowance only in exceptional circumstances and on individual merits.

Having declined to confirm the NRL had seized upon Hunt as worthy of a marquee allowance to be paid by the League, it’s reasonable to come to the conclusion there has been no such allowance made available to the cash-strapped Titans.

“We see this as something that may only be used once every 10 years to attract the very best to our game,” the spokesman said.

So the obvious response to that is, if not Hunt, then who qualifies as being worth this allowance?

Israel Folau? An All Black attacking weapon such as Ben Smith or Cory Jane? Are none of these good enough?

If the NRL were to look favourably on a club as having a case for marquee allowance assistance, would there be better candidates than the Titans and Hunt?

Smith said in an interview with The Courier-Mail two weeks ago that the NRL had already provided resources to support the Titans through their financial problems.

How better to help a club which is not able to pay 100 per cent of the salary cap — and the Titans are one of several clubs in that situation this year — than to advance some of the NRL war chest in bringing a star player to a struggling team?

I asked Smith if any club had presented a case for marquee player allowance assistance since it came into effect in February and he said none had.

Smith said he was sure the club chief executive officers all understood the process of presenting the case to the NRL for a marquee allowance.

“The approach could come either way. It would be for exceptional players in other codes,’’ Smith told The Courier-Mail.

“We have the ability as a game to do it now. It’s going to happen very rarely and you run a commercial slide rule over it. If you bring an individual who dramatically improves the image of the game and dramatically influences the mothers and the families to be more interested in our game, I’d consider it, but it is exceptional.’’

Hunt is an exceptional case, no matter how many revisionist critics he seems to be gathering during an AFL season in which he has made one senior appearance.

Hunt has played 44 AFL games for the Suns, having tailored his strength and conditioning regime to the demands of a different sport.

He played 10 State of Origin games for Queensland before his defection from the Broncos, the last in 2009, so had he stayed in league he was every chance of being one of the rare band of Origin players with 20-plus appearances.

Also a French top-tier rugby union player during a fill-in stint while he awaited his AFL debut, Hunt would be a valuable asset in the Titans’ battle to re-engage the Gold Coast sports market.



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Obviously I'm biased, but whether you want Hunt here or not, it's hard to disagree with the premise of this article. Bringing Hunt here is basically as perfect an opportunity for the new marquee allowance rules to be exercised as it gets.

[Numbers]

I'm not against the club signing Hunt per se (though I'm not really a fan of players that head off to Union or AFL), but not if we've got competition for his signature. Unless the NRL is going to come to the party with both cash and some kind of salary cap concession, I can't see signing him as anything but a big under - he hasn't played league for 5 years and has been injury prone of late. The chance that he may not contribute much to on-field success is just too high for the club to spend big dollars on him without NRL assistance.

[JunctionBlock]

If there was going to be a marquee signing allowance used for the first time I'd use it on Izzy Folau to come back to league, better yet to the Titans. But that ships sailed.

[Titanic]

My dream player would be Cooper Cronk.

[Bayside Titan]

My dream player would be Cooper Cronk.

Mine too. Then keep him on to be Backs Coach and do stuff on the corporate side of things. Might also get him at a fairly good price too.