The club should pay......

[ism22]

He is definitley a once in a life time player & has that ability that no one else has. Todd Carney in 2010 was the best I'd seen at the Roosters till Latrell came along, he is sublime in attack. The Roosters can offer Latrell alot of thing not just money so hopefully who ever manages him understands the real big picture not just the big picture.

Agreed. Latrell is just such a complete player. Off head:
- Think about his setup for Keary... pinpoint kicks while in heavy traffic. The awareness too. Which other centres in the comp setup their 5/8 for tries off kicks? Name another one who doesn't just run hard and rely on the 5/8 for kicks.
- His brute force try was ridiculous!!! Who else can brush away 4 NRL grade players like that? And it's all natural strength... he's only gonna get stronger as he carves off a little bit of that puppy fat (not calling him fat, just saying he's only 21 with a lot of development left in him).
- The range of his kicks has to be up there with some of the best in the game. I've seen him go ~60m off drop-outs. IMO this means he can kick further during play. Imagine if he got another ~10m worth of range off drop-outs. Repeat sets would mean NOTHING to our opposition. IMO it's easy to forget how we used to struggle without his dropouts.
- Above all, he's got a good head on him that wraps this all together. IMO he's clearly grown up knowing the consequences of fukking around and doesn't take any of his talent for granted. At 21 the be all this plus also have it all sorted out up top is very impressive.
- Building on the above, why do we pay Cronk $1 million? I'd say pretty much purely because he's a good influence on our players. Imagine Latrell in 3 years time... stronger... smarter... fitter... 10m longer dropouts... AND... he's helping a bunch of gun indigenous players make the transition from being country prodigies to being big city superstars. For this alone he's worth $1 million a year.

Conclusion:
- When Cronk moves on, we MUST give his salary and more to Latrell and lock it into our medium term estimates. If this means we need to use an inexperienced half for a few years then so what? Keary's world class and Latrell can cover as an extra half.
- This isn't like when RTS left because RTS left quicker, without speaking to us and with less of a well rounded game. Latrell's at the table willing to negotiate in good faith and he's letting his form do all the talking rather than playing BS games with us. Latrell deserves respect in return.

[Horrie Is God]

Mitchell said contract negotiations weren't even on his radar for 2019, insisting the stories about his future were just speculation.

"All this talk, I'm contracted until next year, I'm just happy to play out my years, then when it comes to negotiating, then we'll talk," Mitchell said.

"At the moment I just want to keep playing footy and not worry about rumours going around that people are making up.

"I see those things and I think 'I know they're not true'. I'm here to have fun and play footy with the boys and go through the season and build something."

[milanja]

He is definitley a once in a life time player & has that ability that no one else has. Todd Carney in 2010 was the best I'd seen at the Roosters till Latrell came along, he is sublime in attack. The Roosters can offer Latrell alot of thing not just money so hopefully who ever manages him understands the real big picture not just the big picture.

Give him and his bro one of those Harvard correspondents things only Nick can organise.

[Mickie Lane]

He is definitley a once in a life time player & has that ability that no one else has. Todd Carney in 2010 was the best I'd seen at the Roosters till Latrell came along, he is sublime in attack. The Roosters can offer Latrell alot of thing not just money so hopefully who ever manages him understands the real big picture not just the big picture.

[stephenj]

stop worrying about souths be concerned about rugby. now theyve offladed preacher folou they can afford to go big on latrell? anyone knows him get in his ear about staying away from rugby

[Tommy Smith]

It’s him or Tedesco I still reckon.

Can’t have both.

Tedesco every day as he's a fullback.

Jerry Rice was a better football player than Joe Montana but you'd take Montana all day, every day because he played the most important position.

Similarly, the world's greatest centre will never be more valuable than the world's greatest fullback; even if he's the better footy player.

On a side note, if it's Latrell for 1.2m or Joey for 600k then I'd probably take Joey tbh.

We can't win the comp without Teddy or Keary, but we can without Latrell. Just a few random thoughts.

[Headless Chook]

I reckon we will get him for $1m a season and I think he's worth every cent of it. He is the face of the game and extremely marketable, will easily pick up TPA's to top up his salary.

[NorfolkStreetKid]

Latrell certainly had a blinder last night, a freakish performance by a freakish talent and I am proud to have him as a Rooster, but seriously the talk of paying him $1.2 or more under the present salary cap is ridiculous. Just can't be done because then Tedesco and Keary would deserve the same money and that's 35% of the salary cap on 3 players. Plus then do we pay Taukeaho the same as Taumalolo ?, How about Toups, Cordner, JWH, Manu, Toupaniua , Friend ? We have the best roster in the comp because we manage the cap better than any other club, and many other clubs have paid overs for certain players and are suffering for it big time. I am sure the club will do everything possible to keep him within reason. Surely there is more than just money involved in a players decision to decide his future. The Club, The coach, The chance to win Grand Finals, the other players, the culture... there is no other club which can offer Latrell what we can. Can you really imagine him going anywhere else ? I think he will stay, for a combination of all those reasons, he has grown up with us for 5 years and can be a Roosters legend. He will stay.

[Bansai Pipeline]

It’s him or Tedesco I still reckon.

Can’t have both.

[Johnny Tobin]

You can’t screw your cap for one player and we won’t do it. Leave that to the other sides with fans that say we have no cap. Having said that, I think it more likely he stays than goes.

[Arties Pie]

That little kick he put on for Keary was sublime and was unstoppable everywhere else, What ever money Keary is on I now say Latrell should be on similar if he can consistently play to this sort of level.

[Thirteen]

If we were to lose him I would be depressed for months.

[Kingbilly]

just keep him in the centres

[chicka]

I was watching Latrell tonight from start to finish. He was the only guy who touched the Rooster at the top of the banner running out. He's the guy who thumps the Rooster on his chest when he scores a try. He's also the guy who always celebrates with the fans even when he pops over a goal. It's things like that along with playing with a smile on his face which makes me think he is really content at Easts and has no real desire to go anywhere else. He seemed happy at the end to take photos, sign balls etc for the little kids and the big kids as well.

So it's funny how with all the talk recently that he pulls a 5 star performance like that out of the bag for the tricolours even though I reckon he has been building up to it. Let's hope it's a sign where he is saying come on Easts, make me a good offer and let's put all this to bed and let the good times roll.

[mattyh]

i would tend to disagree, i would prefer to keep keary, teddy, boyd over latrell. im fully prepared to get shouted down for this, and i love latrell and hope he stays, but as i read with gi, he is a highlights reel player, he can go missing for entire games or moments, boyd, teddy definitley do not do that. we will replace latrell if necessary maybe not like for like but good enough...and if latrell only stays for money what can we really expect performance wise ? a fair price currently for latrell would i feel be in the 750 - 850 bracket, the only way we can give him more is move him to 5/8 th and he makes a fist of it. there is no way he will be our fb with teddy for the simple fact that teddy is a far, far superior fb. no player is bigger then the team.