I actually completely disagree with all of these points.
Firstly, who else would you recruit on min-wage contracts? I believe Brown was signed up for <$200k. As much as they're old and slow, at least they know how to be NRL-players. Remember, Sam Fainu, a young developing forward, who hadn't even solidified himself as a first grader, was able to siphon $500k out of the Tigers. Laiafi, a bench Flegg player, is a Top-30 player next year. That's the market now for young forwards.
It's also not a matter of recruiting one player with the money from all three either; these are all min-wage roster spots that legally must be filled by June 30. There has to be three players, and they must be on min-wage.
That leaves us with two methods. Moneyball, or juniors. For juniors, we must recruit them when they're in the S.G Ball or Matt's phase, or they are too expensive for a min-wage spot later on. This also has to do with demographics and poor development, we don't develop a lot of forwards on the Beaches.
Unfortunately, this reason isn't easily explained, and my words will never outweigh the echo chamber of "wHeRe aRe tHe YoUnG FoRwArDs, tHiS iS aLl oN SeIbS" on Facebook.
2. No way of knowing if this is true for most of them. They are all on below $550k, because otherwise they would appear on that DT article. Saab is on $250k, Talau on $200k. These aren't outrageous salaries.
3. We have gone hard for Starling, Brailey, Paix, Mozer, Smoothy, and those are just the ones we know about. This is a matter of not being able to land someone, rather than ignorance by the coaching staff. Yet again the echo chamber won't hear this.
