Simon Woolford believes the June 26th deadline imposed on clubs to make calls on players may need to be extended.
Under normal circumstances, clubs must inform off-contract players whether they will be offering them a new deal on May 1st. However, it was decided that date would be pushed back to June 26th in order to give clubs more time as they deal with more pressing issues.
However, with no games set to take place before that date, Woolford claims coaches will have to make uneducated decisions on whether to offer deals to players or not.
While players are now free to speak to rival clubs, with the May 1st deadline kept in place from the players’ side, the Giants head coach believes the date for clubs will need to be pushed back further.
“Clubs are just going to have to make a judgement on no footy this year,” Woolford said.
“Every recruitment decision is an educated guess but it’s going to be a stab in the dark with some decisions at all clubs.
“We have a lot of guys off-contract but we haven’t been able to assess how they’re travelling and how their bodies are.
“Some of them are at the backend of their career and looking for their last deal, but they’re in a position where they can’t show off what they’re made of. We wanted to see how they hit the ground running.
“There are blokes like Leroy (Cudjoe), who hasn’t played for two years, now he can’t show us if he’s recovered and we have to make a decision.
“If the date is staying in place we need to get playing footy early or we need to look at moving it back again.”
