Its the three year deal for $1.9 million that has broken the hearts of Wests Tigers supporters.
James Tedesco simply could not refuse the money being offered by the Canberra Raiders. In an ideal world he would have re-signed with the Wests Tigers and hopefully played out his career there.
Tedesco knows better than most how fleeting an NRL career can be. After being a great junior player Tedesco made his first grade debut to lots of funfair and hype. A cruel knee injury stopped everything, and from being a young star in the making Tedesco now found himself a young footballer with a lot of potential and one knee reconstruction already under his belt.
To his credit he has bounced back in his second season as good as any player I’ve ever seen returning from a major knee injury. He has not lost any of his explosive speed. He was even being whispered about as a possible New South Wales State Of Origin player earlier this season.
The Canberra Raiders are not the ideal situation for Tedesco, and he will know that himself. But for a young bloke who has already seen his career altered in a moment of bad luck, it would have been impossible to turn down the money the Raiders offered him.
One last thing to consider is the Wests Tigers suggesting they couldn’t match the Raiders offer. I don’t pretend to know all of the salaries being payed out by the Wests Tigers in 2014 but I can not see the players in the Tigers team would be a priority over Tedesco, or who would be soaking up large chunks of salary cap space.
I tend to think this is another case of a club not wanting to match an offer from another club and then blaming the salary cap to get fans off their back.
Good luck to James Tedesco anyway. I think it will be a massive change for him. He goes from Mick Potter to Ricky Stuart. Poor bastard!
