League: Warriors set sights on top-shelf players

Kiwis five-eighth Kieran Foran won't talk to rival clubs until he decides whether to accept a four-year offer to re-sign with Manly. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The Warriors can afford to buy both five-eighth Kieran Foran and back-rower Jason Taumalolo, despite each player commanding offers around $1 million a season.

The Kiwis test duo are in the final years of their respective contracts with Manly and North Queensland, and the Warriors are among the frontrunners of rival clubs looking to sign both players for 2016.

Warriors chief executive Jim Doyle insists they could squeeze both under the $6.55 million salary cap, which is set to grow further in the next two years.

"You can fit both in if you target the right players at the right price and at the right time," Doyle said.

"It depends on what cap you've got available and what's coming up. Next year the cap is A$250,000 more than this year, and the following year is A$200,000 more than that.

"There's the marquee player allowance, there are third-party agreements, all sorts of things that come into it.

"That's a big part of the salary cap, managing it to get the maximised amount of talent."

Last month, Foran told the Herald it would be "a bigger call" to leave Sydney for Auckland, while both Parramatta and Canterbury have been touted as the clubs most likely to snare him should he part ways with the Sea Eagles.

Foran's manager, Paul Sutton, says his client won't talk to rival clubs until he decides whether to accept a four-year offer to re-sign with Manly.

This week the Warriors' focus shifted to Townsville where officials are understood to have personally delivered 21-year-old Taumalolo a giant $2 million two-year offer.

Much is made of the Warriors' inability to match the corporate backing of powerful NRL clubs such as the Sydney Roosters, yet Doyle believes elite players such as Foran would have no trouble finding additional financial support from Auckland's business sector.

"He's a pretty marketable individual, so there would be third parties out there who would potentially be interested in helping fund someone like him if he were to come," he said.

"We've got to build more of a network and we know that if the Warriors can get success - as in always in the top four and winning the premiership every now and again - the city will get behind them."

Their efforts to sign both Foran and Taumalolo highlight the club's ambition to become one of the NRL's genuine powerhouses.

"It shows players we are trying to talk to how serious we are in regards to wanting to get success. They can see it's very professional and that we want to be really serious about trying to be more consistent and stay at a higher level."

The Warriors are unconcerned by reports detailing the Cowboys' efforts to improve Taumalolo's off-field discipline, including fining him for turning up late to training and wearing the wrong gear, and Doyle believes there have been no serious behavioural issues.

"There is nothing that we are aware of and I've never heard anything. I was, for a couple of years, in charge of the integrity unit so there's every possibility that if there was any dramas with players off the field, I might know a little bit about that."