Rugby League: Big Joe saga has to be ended

By Peter Jessup

C'mon Joe, make up your mind.

Like a kid given his choice in an ice cream shop, Warriors prop Joe Vagana is infuriating everyone with the time he's taking to savour the situation while he's flavour of the month.

Coach Mark Graham made it clear some time ago that he regarded Vagana as integral to his plans for a serious title shot in 2000. The club and the player's agent, Simon Burgess, have been negotiating for the past seven months and last week management gave Vagana an ultimatum. But a week later there is still no deal.

It's fortunate this business isn't hanging over a Warriors side pushing for top-eight honours. It was clear that the period of contract negotiation affected halfback Stacey Jones' play earlier in the year and Vagana has sometimes been short of his explosive best this season.

Which is simply testament to how good he could be - remember the barging tries against Canberra and Canterbury.

There is a lot of inexperience involved. This is Vagana's first look at the market outside New Zealand. It's the first time the club has had to face the tenacious, underarm tactics the Aussies will employ to chase a player they REALLY want. And Burgess is a relative newcomer to the sports agents' ranks. Until a couple of years ago he was working as a sports reporter at the Cairns Post.

The negotiations were about to fall over last week until the cool head of Graham Lowe intervened to bring the parties back to the table. Lowe has kept to his pre-season promise to keep out of the football side of things, leaving that to Mark Graham.

His rare involvement this time is one measure of how much they want Big Joe. Another is the fact that he has been offered a straight money deal as opposed to the majority of his team-mates, who will earn most of their pay in bonuses.

The Warriors sat on $275,000 for several months, upped it to $300,000 recently and are now tinkering with the details - superannuation, medical plan, tax - to match what they believe to be offers of more than $400,000 from Aussie clubs. They have given Vagana permission to look elsewhere, conditional on their having the final offer.

They find it hard to believe any NRL club can pay $400,000-plus for one player and meet the salary cap of $A3.25m. The NRL has signalled that it will audit any club that does pay over the odds.

The tax breaks in New Zealand mean there would be little take-home difference between $300,000 here and $400,000 there.

There's been talk Vagana wants a change after five years at the Warriors. He will get that under Graham and assistant Mike McClennan. Both are inspiring as coaches - Vagana wouldn't learn any more at Canterbury, Newcastle or St George.

Graham has occasionally held his head in his hands at some of the things Vagana has done on the field - throwing a pass at Tony Tuimavave's head with the line open in a tight game which the Warriors lost at Penrith as an example.

The coach describes his 114kg prop as "just a kid really." He has plenty to teach him.

Vagana is a popular member of the squad and certainly his team-mates want him to stay.

But if he goes, it's no crime. At 23, he's entitled to look after his best interests. It's a professional game.

The talk that Burgess won't need a passport to get into Auckland if Vagana goes - because he'll be hung at the Customs barrier - is nonsense. It's an agent's duty to ensure his client has all options laid out. What sympathy would his detractors feel for Brisbane if he signed Gorden Tallis to the Warriors?

But there remain several pros for Vagana in staying in Auckland. Being Polynesian, there is family for starters. And here, in a one-team town, he has the chance to be a superstar when the Warriors learn the winning habit.

Spare a thought for Vagana's fellow front-rower Brady Malam. No one can be feeling the delay more. Although neither his agent (also Burgess) nor the club will admit it, Malam's future is inextricably interwoven.

If Vagana goes, Malam will likely stay. If Vagana squeezes out more money, Malam may have to go.

At the season's start Malam was on form, starting the matches ahead of Vagana. Now his livelihood is hanging on which way his mate Joe jumps.