Fifita's collateral damage hangs over three clubs

David Fifita will almost certainly be the highest-profile NRL player defection for 2025 after confirming he’s leaving Gold Coast to join the Roosters at year’s end.

The barnstorming Origin backrower is heading to Sydney’s eastern beaches on a four-year deal said to be worth about $850,000 a year.

The 24-year-old turned down a $1 million contract option with the Titans to head south in search of a premiership.

The Chooks beat out the Panthers in what was a rare miss for the three-time defending premiers.

And his defection leaves plenty of questions around the Roosters, the Panthers, and the poor old Titans.

Angus Crichton and Ivan Cleary are feeling the heat after David Fifita’s decision.

HOW CAN THE CHOOKS AFFORD HIM?

The running joke in rugby league is that the Roosters have a “salary sombrero” rather than a cap, or pay their players extras using brown paper bags handed over in dark alleyways.

The truth is the eastern Sydney club has buckets of cash to play with for next year onwards thanks to a number of stars leaving at the end of 2024.

Luke Keary and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves are retiring, Joseph Suaalii and Joey Manu are jumping ship to rugby, and Angus Crichton and Daniel Tupou are yet to commit beyond this season.

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There’s reports the Roosters could have as much as $4.5 million spare for next year – almost half the entire salary cap.

Phil Gould also explained why the Roosters’ roster regularly appears to be worth more than other clubs’.

“People talk about the Roosters buying marquee players, but a lot of the players came to them as teenagers,” Gould told Wide World of Sports’ Six Tackles with Gus this week.

“Which gave them value in the salary cap so when they wanted a (Cooper) Cronk or a Sonny Bill Williams or a James Tedesco they could blow everyone else out of the water and go and do it.

“The market is the strangest I’ve seen it in all my time, and that’s been exacerbated by the 17th team coming in in the Dolphins.

“All power is with the managers and the players, so I can understand how the Titans were backed into (putting those clauses in Fifita’s contract).”

In short, even with healthy upgrades for the likes of rising stars Sam Walker and Terrell May, the Tricolours can easily afford Fifita’s wage next year.

WHY DID THE ROOSTERS NEED HIM?

Need is not the correct word to use when analysing their purchase of Fifita.

The Roosters may yet win this year’s premiership, and so to say the club “needs” another Origin star would be like saying Lionel Messi “needs” another Ballon d’Or.

But Fifita can be the most damaging ball-runner in the NRL when at his best, and it would have been negligence from a top club not to enquire when he came onto the market.

The Roosters squad is also stacked with quality backrowers – Crichton is in the form of his life this year, while Sitili Tupouniua and young gun Siua Wong are locked down on long-term contracts.

But Crichton has not committed to the club beyond 2024, and so there may yet be a backrow spot open up in 2025.

Between Crichton, Tupouniua and Wong, you would imagine at least one of them and perhaps two will now have to leave. Tupouniua is on a contract worth over $600,000 a season and Wong was touted last year as one of the best young players in the game. There was talk that just about every NRL club was interested in signing him as well as both Rugby Australia and the All Blacks, such was the hype he generated. It’s hard to imagine either of those players would be happy with the prospect of being stuck in reserve grade or sitting on the bench for big minutes.

At 24 years old Fifita could become the long-term edge partner of gun halfback Sam Walker, who still has more than a decade of top football ahead of him.

The best playmakers thrive with a quality backrower to work with, and there may come a time when Walker and Fifita form the most lethal combination in the game.

Their budding bromance can also translate into the Origin arena where both will be lining up for Queensland before too long.

For the Roosters, it ensures the club’s premiership window should remain ajar for a long time yet.

HOW DO THE TITANS REALLY FEEL?

New Gold Coast coach Des Hasler ultimately couldn’t convince his million-dollar backrower that the Titans were close to winning a premiership.

The only reason a professional athlete turns down more money to head elsewhere is they are unhappy, or convinced their current team isn’t very good.

Titans coach Des Hasler.

After losing seven of their first eight games in 2024 no one can blame Fifita for doubting Gold Coast’s premiership window is anywhere close to open.

Hasler was humble when fronting media on Thursday and denied any ill will towards the outgoing player.

But Titans ambassador Gorden Tallis – who helped get Fifita to the glitter strip in 2020 – was not so impressed.

“I’m disappointed because I think the Titans are on the way up after getting Des Hasler,” Tallis told Fox League.

“I know they haven’t had the greatest start to the year, but I can see improvements there.

“The Titans fought really hard to get him there and he had a clause in the contract and they fought again. It is partly the club’s fault for putting the clause in.”

The silver lining for Gold Coast is the $1m the club now has to play with under the salary cap for next year.

Queensland legends Wally Lewis and Darren Lockyer have already urged the Titans to go to market for a top-line playmaker.

WHAT DO THE PANTHERS DO NOW?

It was an interesting play from Penrith in the first place, and possibly more intriguing now it’s failed.

It was the first time in a number of years the Panthers had pursued an established NRL star for big money.

The western Sydney club has built its triple-premiership dynasty on the back of a strong junior nursery and nurturing players through the system to mould them into first-grade stars.

Even when top players left along the way, Penrith replaced them largely with local juniors – and occasionally with bargain buys who became important weapons.

The club has plenty of cash to splash around given the looming exits of Jarome Luai and James Fisher-Harris.

It will be intriguing now to see whether they spread that money among the current players and continue along the development path, or stay in the market for a strike forward to make up for missing Fifita.

The obvious option is to hit back at the Roosters by pinching one of their stars.

Angus Crichton has returned to State of Origin form this year and remains unsigned anywhere beyond 2024.

The NRL will be keen to keep him out of rugby’s hands and Penrith may be a tempting option if the club can offer him a similar deal to the one Fifita turned out.

Roosters young gun Siua Wong is contracted to the end of 2026 but is struggling to get a look-in at Moore Park this year. He is considered a future star and could thrive in the Panthers system – although the Chooks would have to release him first.

If the Panthers choose to retreat from the market, Mavrik Geyer is a local backrower who debuted this year and he may yet develop into a regular first-grader.