Resigned for 2016. According to a club email.

Just for clarity, resigned or re-signed?

Re-signs.

An official club email or a mistakenly sent out club email?

I hope he isn't getting paid a lot for that, if he's our marquee it's a complete waste of money.

Roby is the benefactor of the marquee allowance.

[urlhttp://m.saintsrlfc.com/news/page/5015[/url

It's also worth noting that Walsh had an NRL offer (I don't know who for) which he turned down.

Happy with that. If he gets his fitness back, he's the best 7 in the league.

I think the NRL offer was Titans.

Says who?

In his latest Star column, KC confirms we will be using the marquee allowance to offer better deals to our current players such as Roby and Big Alex. Sorry to burst the fantasy RL signings bubble...

Signed it months ago.

I suppose it depends on his ankle if it's a good deal for saints. It's not worked out for him injury wise here and he's basically missed a season and half in the two seasons he's been here.

It's worth noting the option was in his favour and no lt the clubs.

"If NRL clubs come hunting" - that's the key bit, were using it to try and keep the players we do have rather than trapping ourselves and risk losing our best players.

As nice as a "marquee" is, we don't have a great record with them and I'd rather us use it this way ...

Hasn't big Alex just signed a new deal ?


Id hope we can now offer Jones a better deal and keep him. He's still only Young and will get better and better. Hes brilliant to have as he covers Backrow and centre. He was the ideal reolament for Sia in that he can play the two pistions very well.

I think we will miss jones more than we think.

That's very kind of him, who's he given it to?

Woops! *Beneficiary

We did give Alex a new contract to stave off the Aussies after him, I'd be surprised if he's earning over 175k though as required by non homegrown players...

I think the Jones deal was agreed long ago - it's sad to see one of our own leave, but I don't believe he's worth locking in our marquee ... If in a few years the Aussies come for Percival/ Thompson/ Savelio ala Graham then it needs to be used, but using it to make space for squad players isn't really clever IMO

Ridiculous when they've both just signed new deals. So the club gets extra cap room to spend and just gives more money to existing players who had already agreed to stay? Great move

He wouldn't get £175k anyway.

No. The allowance has been applied to Robys salary so it now only counts towards 100k on the cap. We haven't given him any more money, just freed up the difference to spend elsewhere.

He means giving walmsley extra to keep him having him just signed a new deal.

That's not what has happened or what Cunningham said though. He said along the lines of if the NRL come sniffing when around Walmsley then we could potentially use the rule to keep him here.

If he's fit it's a no-brainer, really.

Quality southern-hemisphere playmakers are a dwindling commodity. I was going to say [i"when fit he's a cut above SL-standard scrum halves"[/i - but, hell, when INJURED he's a cut above SL standard.

Other than Roby and Walmsley- we currently haven't got anybody who NRL would be interested in and both are signed up relatively long term.
But realistically what is Roby earning ???? Possibly £200k - so making him our Marquee in reality only gives us £100k to spread around keeping others happy.
May help to keep Savelio and gone towards Walsh - but is that what this Marquee rule was brought in for ?
Not in my opinion - I thought the idea was to bring in some top class talent to a very average league. I'd love to see a Sam Burgess back where he belongs in an England RL shirt

I think you are jumping to your own conclusions there. That was only a small part of the reason.