Of all the details that came out about Jarome Luai’s trip to Papua New Guinea, the most illuminating was about the hole in the ground.
Until the news about his three-year deal and Alex Johnston’s imminent move to the Chiefs came to light, all the new franchise could sell was an idea.
They won’t enter the league until 2028 and face existential challenges unique in rugby league’s 131-year history. They had a coach and a name, but to many, they existed only in the abstract sense.
So much has been written and said about rugby league diplomacy, $600 million budgets, tax-free contracts and uniting one of the most culturally diverse nations on the planet, but until now it’s been easy to dismiss the words as wind.
When the Chiefs brass gave Luai the tour of what will be the future site of their luxury compound, all they could show him was a hole in the ground.
He had to take their promises on faith, but by accepting what shapes up as the richest per-season contract in rugby league history, he has made that promise real.
The hole in the ground may as well have been overflowing with bubbling crude or filled with money, because now begins the greatest gold rush rugby league players have known since the Super League war. He is the first, but others are sure to follow.
Usually, there are limits to what most teams can buy with raw, uncut cash, especially new ones.
Just ask the Dolphins, who missed out on stars as varied as Kalyn Ponga, Cameron Munster and Reece Walsh when they entered the competition, despite throwing around fat stacks and having the additional selling points of being based in Brisbane and coached by Wayne Bennett.
Or ask the Perth Bears, who are six months away from their first pre-season and have signed many a competent and consistent first grader but no player of Luai’s calibre or profile, and now seem hopelessly outgunned.
All the other challenges associated with the Chiefs still exist today, as surely as they will tomorrow, but they’ve just flexed a level of economic power that dwarfs anything else any expansion side in rugby league history could offer, and Luai’s commitment is proof there really is gold in them thar hills.
His move is different to Johnston, who is taking a top-up for what will likely be the final year of his career. The South Sydney man is still a significant signing because of his status as the game’s greatest-ever try-scorer and his existing links to Papua New Guinea via his appearances for the Kumuls.
But after landing Luai, anything feels possible for the Chiefs. The four-time premiership winner was already one of the highest-paid players in the game and the face and primary playmaker at a club that seems, after so many years in the wilderness, on the verge of success.
Luai has been integral in creating the opportunity for that success, and if he sees it through, it adds to an already brilliant legacy.
Luai has helped the Tigers revival over the past 18 months. (AAP: Dean Lewins)
He’s forged a close connection to the coach, who doubles as his childhood hero, and as recently as last year, he said he wanted to stay with the Tigers for life.
It is everything a player could ever want, but it doesn’t add up to $2.2 million. If the Chiefs can prise someone away from all that Luai already has, the power of their money might be limitless.
Luai’s exit from the Tigers will be an extremely long goodbye. He still has a chance to make good on what he was brought there to do, and if he can lead the joint venture to their first finals series in 15 years this season, and maybe do a little better than that in 2027, it will go a long way towards soothing any bad feeling that comes from his exit.
But for the Chiefs, his signing is an announcement of a new player entering the game within the game. One big signing often brings two, and few players could have brought the same reputation for success as Luai.
He is old enough now that a generation of players, many of whom are starting to enter the league, came into the game watching him win all those premierships with Penrith, and they revere him.
He is magnetic and charismatic enough to have sold many a player the Tigers’ dream over the past 18 months; he can do so again in Papua New Guinea, only with untold riches to back him up.
That’s why this is proof of concept. That’s why the theoretical power has become real. The PNG money is good, and there is so, so much of it to be had.
That’s why every player who has expressed an idle interest in the Chiefs, like Pat Carrigan, Mitch Kenny and Liam Martin, now feels like more of a chance than they did before, and given how quickly the Luai situation has unfolded, who knows which player could be next?
Since its entry into the league was announced, PNG was always going to be playing a different game to everyone else, and it will always be that way because they face challenges no other club ever has or will.
But this is proof they can deal with a lot of those problems by being rich, and in rugby league, money really can buy happiness, as long as you have enough of it.
dan