Half-price: Why these two budget buys are mixing it with NRL’s millionaire playmakers

Six of the NRL’s best playmakers earning almost $6 million per year between them will take to the paddock in this week’s preliminary finals.

The two remaining halves – Roosters No.7 Sandon Smith and Cronulla’s Braydon Trindall – will join their grand final pursuit at a fraction of the price.

Penrith’s Nathan Cleary ($1.2 million), Storm star Cameron Munster ($1.15m) and the Sharks’ Nicho Hynes ($1m) all top seven-figures, with Luke Keary and Jahrome Hughes ($850,000), and Jarome Luai ($750,000 before taking up his $1.25m Tigers deal next season) not too far behind.

The pay packets of Trindall and Smith are not even in the same ballpark, estimated at roughly a third of those boasted by the NRL’s highest-earning playmakers.

Even so, their respective finals campaigns have brought them a taste of the NRL high life and scrutiny that comes with it.

Smith takes on Melbourne in just his 11th NRL game as a starting half. In his ninth, he and the Roosters were taken to the cleaners by Penrith, with Smith targeted by Cleary’s marauding edge-runners and his kicking radar knocked askew in the process.

His 10th outing in the halves hotseat had him scything past another millionaire in Daly Cherry-Evans for his first NRL try.

Trindall’s season-long revival has been even more stark. In April his career was in the crosshairs when he had been caught by police driving to training under the influence of alcohol with an illicit substance also in his system.

By June he was back. Come Saturday night he was in charge, taking the lion’s share of Cronulla’s kicking from Hynes, scoring two tries and orchestrating their first finals win since 2018.

By Sunday morning, Immortal Andrew Johns was pitching a market value “up around $900,000” for the 25-year-old, who enters the final year of his Sharks deal from November 1.

For all the criticism of Hynes after his underwhelming showing against Melbourne, coach Craig Fitzgibbon put Trindall’s week one finals effort in the same boat, but with the same faith shown when the young half put his career in jeopardy.

“He’s an infectious guy. He’s calm and confident, and he’s in his infancy too. He’s just getting started,” was Fitzgibbon’s tip after Trindall tore North Queensland apart.

It was a sentiment echoed by the man himself, with Penrith’s three-time premiership-winning halves now next on the horizon.

“I went and sorted myself out and got the help I needed,” Trindall said of his off-field dramas. “I just really wanted to come back and earn the trust back from the squad. I think I’m starting to do that.”

Smith, too, enjoys unwavering support from coach Trent Robinson and senior players, who were all in his ear the moment Sam Walker’s ruptured ACL opened the door to the Roosters No.7 jersey, and again after his tough night out at Penrith.

“It comes with that number on your back _ you’ve got to perform when the game comes, when those tight moments come, you’ve got to deliver,” Smith said after dusting himself off and dusting Manly.

“That’s what everyone expects. I had a good chat with Robbo earlier in the week when I came in and he said, ‘Take these lessons early in your career. As much as you didn’t play how you wanted to play, we didn’t play how we wanted to, there were a lot of lessons in there that you can take from it’.

“So I sat down and had a think about that and turned that negative into a positive. There was so much I could learn from and take into this game and further in my career.”

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