‘Puts a noose around their neck’: Knights slammed over Brown deal after ‘won’t lose a wink’ quip
Knights officials have been accused of putting “a noose” around the club’s neck by making the “most contentious signing in NRL history”.
The fallout from Newcastle’s bombshell Dylan Brown deal has continued after the Eels five-eighth shocked the rugby league world by signing a 10-year deal worth $13 million.
The response has been intense, with very few pundits backing the historic signing to be a success but club bosses have declared they “won’t lose a wink of sleep” over the deal.
“It’s a great deal for Dylan Brown, I just think for the club… it puts a noose around their neck for 10 years,” Paul Crawley said on NRL 360.
“They’ve paid top dollar to bring in a bloke who no doubt on his day is one of the best players in the game, but they’re brought him in to do a job he hasn’t proven he can do.
“I just think it’s a huge gamble.”
Fellow journalist Dean Ritchie went one step further and said it was the most contentious signing in NRL history.
“History will ultimately determine whether this decision is right or not. But it is in my eyes the most contentious signing, in terms of ability versus asking price, in NRL history,” he said.
“I don’t think we’ve had a bigger signing for a player, that I don’t think is worth a million bucks, to get $1.3 million.
“But the Knights are incredibly comfortable and they said today ‘we won’t lose a wink of sleep over this’.
“You think of Fletcher Sharpe, Kalyn Ponga, Dylan Brown… it is going to be one potent side… throw in Bradman Best and you’ve got a top-four team.
NRL premiership winner Braith Anasta questioned whether Brown could deliver Newcastle a drought breaking premiership.
“I think he will open up Kalyn, there is no doubt about that because he’s just a really good player. Great footwork, speed, he’s got X-factor. Even a quick play-the-ball is going to create time and space that Kalyn doesn’t have at the moment,” Anasta said.
“The big one is his game control and is he a genuine 7 that wins premierships because that’s what they’ve bought him for.”
Anasta then pointed to comments made by “two of the sharpest minds in our game” in Cooper Cronk and Matty Johns.
“This is not a criticism… This is just a fact. Dylan is a six,” Johns said.
“Dylan can impact a game heavily, he can have a big impact on a game; but to do that, he needs someone alongside him to control the game. That’s what he needs.
“Dylan is an explosive player, he impacts the game through moments. He’s not a seven, he’s a six. Dylan’s game is the game of a deputy. Which most sixes are; they are deputies.
“At the moment, he’s a reactive player, he’s a deputy, he’s a pure six. Hell of a six. Very good six. But he ain’t a seven.”
Champion halfback Cooper Cronk pointed to last year, when Moses was injured early in the season. Brown played No.7 for eight games and went 1-7, with just three of the losses coming against top-eight sides.
“I was disappointed in what Dylan Brown delivered when Mitchell Moses was out last year,” Cronk said.
“We’ve said this before but when a five-eighth has their main man go down, sometimes it’s really good learning and development for you to go wear the seven and find out what it takes in 80 minutes and during the week; to say, ‘Oh, that’s what Mitch does through the week, that’s what Nathan (Cleary) does. When I go back to six, I’m going to bring that to my game’.
“And he moved to halfback and he didn’t really do much for Parramatta.
“As someone who was watching Dylan Brown play, I was thinking, ‘This is a chance, this is actually going to elevate his five-eighth play, understanding what Mitch goes through every week’. But it just didn’t have that impact.”
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