I don't get this starting assurance thing
60 minutes at lock is 60 minutes at lock regardless of whether it's minues 0-60, 0-20 and 40-80 or 20-80 it isn't 1983 here, star players start on the bench all the time as long as they get full minutes, Harry Grant did it for years, David Fifita did it, etc
JMK is irreplaceable now (well not irreplaceable, Harry Grant is on the market, although I doubt we can afford him unless we lose both centres) but may not be by the end of his contract
Plath and Donoghoe will need upgrades and obviously Katoa will need to be bumped up to at least 1.2m a season or so which is a big upgrade but only 600k or so vs what he's on now if he's willing to take a big salary but slight unders to keep the side together which he's talked about repaying loyalty a lot, obviously we should not low ball him at all but he is pretty likely to extend on 1.2-1.3m a season vs trying to get 1.5+ on the open market especially if we are in a contending window
Williams 800k will be coming back into the cap too by 2029 unless he's getting extended for delivering at an elite level still and at his age will likely be 1-2 year deals max so there's a chance we can move Dongohoe to 6 and not have to sign a replacement at that point if we don't have a ready made developed talent to promote whether that's Oloapu or whoever else if we want to keep Donoghoe primarily at lock and Plath primarily as a middle forward.
Molo will also be off contract/probably not re signed due to age at that point and will be replaced by a rookie most likely, so that's a small saving there as well as well as Kaufusi retiring
If we keep both Bostock and Herbie it does make the cap very tight but if Bostock and Flegler both move on as expected we should have more than enough cap room to keep Herbie and then keep all of Katoa/Plath/Donoghoe/JMK next year - as good as JMK is I can't imagine there will be an enormous market for him on huge money given he will be 33 at the start of the 2029 season, he'll be fine to play on but probably on one year at a time deals etc and not on a huge salary increase given his age
If we somehow keep both Bostock and Herbie we could probably free up some cap space by not re-signing Fuller and using Herbie as a backup fullback since we'll have cover at centre and i'd imagine that would squeeze Williams out after his current deal and either Donoghoe could go to five-eighth and Plath back to lock or we end up with a rookie five eighth for the 2029 season which gives us tons of time to develop one.
There's a very good chance we are a very attractive club for talent to stay with or land at after the 2027 season as even if we do lose Bostock and/or Herbie we still have them for this season and with our squad we should probably finish top 4 if we stay healthy and be competing to win a premiership.
