Each week, The Courier Mail's Pete Badel reports live from Red Hill to give us the latest team news, injury updates and contract sticking points for the three Queensland NRL teams. This week he's got exclusive insight on some major news with QLD stars.
COWBOYS LOSE INDUSTRY HEAVYWEIGHT
It’s been a terrible season for the Cowboys, but some real interesting news out of Townsville; they've been rocked by more departures. I can tell you that Laurence Lancini, the Cowboys chairman who has been on the board of the club for the last twenty years, has announced he will be standing down from the club.
This is a huge blow for the Cowboys; For the Sydney people he's the equivalent of Roosters chairman Nick Politis. Up here he's a powerful man, he's a business tycoon he's worth about 160 million dollars - about half of my salary - so he's a powerful man. Laurence has announced to the Cowboys that he will be severing ties when the new stadium is opened in the first round of 2020 so this will be his penultimate game with the Cowboys.
Lancini has been a wonderful servant for the club. When the club was on its knees in 2001 he saved the club from bankruptcy with the help of News Ltd, so he's been an integral part of their turnaround.
He will be a huge loss to the club. He's 60 years old now and he says he's looking to scale back his interests and move into semi-retirement. Best of luck to him, the Cowboys will miss him dearly.
JORDAN KAHU KNOCKS BACK ONE-YEAR EXTENSION
Jordan Kahu, who joined the Cowboys only this season, has knocked back a one-year extension from the Cowboys, which is interesting. The Cowboys believe they put forward a palatable deal; they think it was quite a solid offer for Jordan Kahu, who has said that he will not be with the Cowboys next season. He’s only 28, so I guess he's weighing up his options but there has been some talk that he may look to go to rugby union in New Zealand.
Of course, he played that game as a kid growing up in NZ so perhaps he'll go back to his roots. Kahu has been a fine servant as well in the NRL. 113 games, played a grand final for the Broncos in 2015, he's been a good servant who had a lot of injuries through his career but he has played tough and is a very good goal kicker
MAL MENINGA’S HIT LIST
The Titans are facing their 11th consecutive defeat. Let's hope the Titans can get a victory for their fans. Mal Meninga, their culture chief, has released a newsletter to Titans members just the other day and revealed he's drawn up a hit list of players that he wants to bring to the club.
he's obviously mentioned David Fifita and we know the Titans are keen to get him but also he's looking to chase Tom Flegler, who goes off-contract at the end of next year. Brisbane have had some tentative talks to extend Flegler but the Titans are keen to have a chat to him and let's see if they can prise him out of Red Hill.
Meninga is also looking at Felise Kaufusi, the Queensland Origin back rower. He's off-contract at Melbourne at the end of next year so it will be interesting to see what Kaufusi does. I can't imagine he'd want to leave a club like the Storm to go to a struggling club like the Titans but who knows? Under Justin Holbrook next year, the new coach, money speaks all languages and they may be able to put forward a good offer for Kaufusi.
DAVID FIFITA’S BARGAIN-CASEMENT DEAL
He's the bargain buy of the season and has been in rampaging form, David Fifita. I can tell you he's currently on $250,000. What value he's giving for the Broncos at the moment, but his value is about to increase - in fact it may triple. The Broncos have met with his manager in recent days, they have escalated talks to retain David. I’m hearing that there'll be offers in excess of $800,000 a season, but the Broncos are very confident of keeping Fifita.
They've set aside $800,000 in the salary cap and they believe they will keep him here for the long term.
