Kikau, Mahoney, Burton, and Crichton are not on anywhere near the same money as DCE, Turbo, Jake and Olakau'atu combined. They largely occupy those same roster salary spots. Additionally, Ciraldo had a say in the signing of two of them I believe. Collectively, there is probably about $2.4 million spent on those four, and about $3.8 spent on our four. Very different propositions, when you consider that all 30 contract spots must have at least $120k (I believe) allocated. That effectively means that we have $7 million / $11.5 million on the cap gone. We have 4 and a bit million total to sign players ABOVE the NRL minimum wage. Canterbury are at about $5.6 million, which is a very different proposition, and have a number of middles that have come through their system, whereas we have to sign them from outside. Additional contracts that were there before Seibold has held influence are Aloiai and Garrick.
Importantly, the Panthers players have been on considerable unders during this entire time. That has not been the case for our "big three". When Spencer Leniu was on $200k there, it becomes blantantly obvious how they could afford those players.
Josh is a good person who was going through a lot, and often these sorts of setbacks are unpredictable. He had a major one.
If you're saying this is all "Spoonys" fault, can you tell me what Des did better? Oh funny about that, he had the exact same problems, and had people like Morgan Boyle on random multi-year deals.