Doing smart business has never been more important than in the NRL’s salary cap era and the Bulldogs have struck gold with Stephen Crichton — right under the nose of the rest of the competition, including the club that developed him.
Crichton, 23, will go down as one of the buys of 2024. But not even that kind of label accurately captures the scale of the coup, with his development into one of the game’s most valuable players casting new light on Penrith’s seemingly-ruthless decision to let him go last year.
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Crichton headlined an intriguing cast of off-season Bulldogs recruits that includes the likes of Kurt Mann and Jaeman Salmon. Outside of three-time premiership winner Crichton, the club went after a contingent of utility-style players broadly considered handy but replaceable.
The changes have certainly helped and Crichton, the marquee signing, has been the driving force. Vibes – and results – have risen sharply, off the back of a seven-win campaign that landed the club down in 15th on the ladder in 2023.
The Bulldogs have reached seven wins in almost half the games played this season, chasing its first finals berth since 2016. The Dogs currently sit sixth on the standings, entering round 17.
Crichton was appointed captain in February, a surprise call to many given he’s still just 23 years old, and his presence and leadership have been key factors in transforming the team’s culture and standards.
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A NEW RESOLVE
Nothing measures attitude and application like a team’s defensive record and the Bulldogs have conceded the second least amount of points of any team in the competition so far this year, behind only Penrith.
Crichton sets the standard in this area. If his Bulldogs teammates don’t notice it every week they would have seen him doing superbly for NSW in the State of Origin series so far.
“Without a shadow of a doubt, Crichton is the best defensive centre (in rugby league),” Matty Johns told Cooper Cronk on the Matty Johns Podcast recently.
The improvement of individuals at Belmore this season has been stark and it’s abundantly clear the players are buying what Crichton is selling.
“Stephen is a really good reader of energy,” Bulldogs coach Ciraldo said when he appointed Crichton as captain in February.
“He understands when people are a little bit flat, low on energy, and when it’s a bit quiet, and he can change the mood in an instant. Sometimes that’s with some annoying music or sounds, or loud noises that he comes up with but he’s great at bringing people together.
“He really understands bringing positive energy to the group and he’s been such a valuable asset to us.”
Speaking after his match-winning, two-try performance for the Dogs against rivals Parramatta earlier this month, Crichton credited the team’s newfound resolve.
“We had a few goals at the start of the year, just to be more resilient,” he recounted on Fox League’s NRL 360.
“This year (unlike last season), we just want to be stronger that way. Even though things don’t go our way, we’re going to keep throwing punches and keep turning up for one another. I think we’ve done that.”
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY FOR PENRITH?
Crichton signed a four-year deal with the Bulldogs in January 2023. The contract is reportedly worth just north of $800,000 a season, locking in the star recruit through to the end of the 2027 season.
At the time, the Panthers still had a host of players’ futures to figure out – Spencer Leniu, Liam Martin, Brian To’o and Izack Tago. And Jarome Luai headlined a list coming off contract a year later.
Paying the price for their success, the Panthers were always going to be losing at least a couple of stars, but a football department that hasn’t got too many calls wrong may live to regret how it valued Crichton and how the negotiations panned out.
In March this year, the Panthers extended Tago for a further three seasons. Also a centre, Tago is now contracted until the end of the 2028 season, on a deal worth a reported $750,000-a-year – not that much less than what the Bulldogs secured Crichton for.
And yet, reports suggest the Panthers seemed resigned to losing their star, who scored tries in all three of the team’s triumphant Grand Finals.
“We never received any terms back but were met with a ‘it may be best for Stephen to go to market’,” Crichton’s manager Liam Ayoub revealed as his client committed to Canterbury.
“Then we were given an impression that Stephen would need to stay on money far lower than what he was on in 2023 to stay beyond that.”
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Ayoub later elaborated on Crichton’s exit, telling the Herald: “Through multiple discussions that I had with the club, our camp felt that Penrith were reluctant to come back to the negotiation table and had, in fact, decided to spend the money elsewhere.
Why else would they tell us, before they had re-signed other players, that Stephen could go to market? And at the same time, despite our attempts, also not come back to us with even a ballpark figure or perceived value from their end?”
Crichton revealed publicly, a month after signing with the Bulldogs, that his preference all along was to remain at Penrith and that the move wasn’t financially-driven, nor was he desperate to change positions.
“I just want to make it clear it was nothing to do with money, it was nothing to do with position,” Crichton told the Daily Telegraph.
“I kind of never wanted to leave Penrith. My only option I wanted was to stay no matter what happened. Once I got my head around that I couldn’t stay with Penrith, I spoke to a few people I trust, then I made a decision to move on.”
Reading between the lines, the Panthers were either lukewarm on extending him, or didn’t believe they’d have a realistic shot at it, given all the other roster management work that still needed to be done.
THE POSITIONAL VALUE CONUNDRUM
It’s not uncommon for players like Crichton to be misvalued by the rugby league market, given its positional value discrepancies.
Clubs are comfortable forking out for a stud fullback, but baulk at the prospect of paying anything close to $1 million a season for a centre.
Crichton publicly set the record straight after committing to a move that he didn’t sign with the Bulldogs specifically to play fullback.
There were doubts heading into the 2024 season as to whether Ciraldo would deploy Crichton as a centre or at the back, given the representative player’s skillset and the fact he’s being paid ‘fullback money’.
But any doubt has been entirely put to bed. They have their game-breaking, tackle-making captain making enormous impact as a centre.
‘LIMITLESS POTENTIAL’: WHAT THE BULLDOGS HAVE LANDED
At just 23 years of age, it’s almost certain Crichton will continue to grow, both as a player and a leader.
“It’s just the person he is. Until the day he finishes his career he will walk into the facilities and want to get better every day,” Ciraldo told AAP of Crichton.
“The potential is limitless with him.”
Crichton will be 27 when his current deal expires, meaning the Bulldogs will get the most out of a player in his peak years, on a deal that doesn’t leave the club short-changed to fill out the rest of the roster. In 2024, he takes up roughly 13 per cent of the Bulldogs’ salary cap.
In a modern rugby league age where business is king, they Bulldogs have bought themselves a $3 million bargain and now hold one of rugby league’s most valuable assets.