Todd Carney has re-signed with the Cronulla Sharks after turning his back on massive offers from the Penrith Panthers and New Zealand Zealand Warriors. It is believed that Carney will put pen to paper on a five year deal that will earn him around $4.5 million.
The last 24 hours had been abuzz with speculation that Carney was set to leave the Sharks and sign with another NRL club. Sharks officials and fans will now be able to rest easy knowing they have locked up their star play maker on a long term deal.
The Sharks really needed some good news lately. With the ASADA investigation dragging on and players coming under intense pressure to talk to investigators, the club needed something football related to focus on.
By re-signing with the Sharks, Todd Carney has shown he has confidence in the club going forward.
It is a little bit ironic in that the Sharks offered Todd Carney a career saving lifeline after he had been sacked by the Sydney Roosters. They showed confidence in Carney as he worked his way back to a level we all knew he could play. Now, as the Sharks go through their own tough times, Carney is repaying the favour, and that is fairly admirable, especially when you consider that he could have made a lot more money elsewhere.
At the end of the day Carney found a club he was happy at.
Over the years we have seen so many players leave a good situation for big money and it just doesn’t work out for them. A lot of the time you see players leave a club they are happy at for big money, only to one day return, a lesser player on lesser money.
It is a good thing for the Cronulla Sharks, Todd Carney and Rugby League in general that Todd Carney will remain a Sharks player.
As for the Panthers and Warriors, they now have a lot of money to spend in a player market that is starting to look quite thin.
While the Warriors have a fantastic amount of talent on their books and a junior base that produces every single year, the Panthers look like they will end up in the terrible position of having released a number of players to free up cap space they now won’t be able to spend.
None of that matters to Cronulla though. They got their man!
