Our offer to Hynes fair value: Broncos

THE Broncos have hit back at suggestions they low-balled Cronulla sensation Nicho Hynes after being blown out of the water by the hungry Sharks with a $1.5m bid for the NRL rising star.

Hynes will come up against the club he nearly joined when the Broncos host the surging Sharks at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night.

As they plotted their Red Hill rebuild last year, Broncos coach Kevin Walters and chief executive Dave Donaghy gave Hynes a tour of Brisbane’s $27m headquarters and pitched their vision of the Brisbane renaissance.

With South Sydney star Adam Reynolds already signed, the Broncos made Hynes (pictured) an offer worth about $1m over three years to leave the Melbourne Storm to play five-eighth or fullback for Brisbane.

It was a significant payrise for Hynes, who was a bench utility at the Storm and genuinely interested in joining the Broncos, but incoming Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon trumped the Broncos with a three-year deal worth about $1.5m. Donaghy, who knew Hynes from his days as chief executive at the Storm, denied the Broncos low-balled the playmaker.

“On a personal level I’m really happy for Nicho, he has worked really hard on his game and life and is getting what he deserves,” he said.

“He is a great young man and player and is bucking the trend of players who have left Melbourne (and struggled). He has taken his game to an even greater height. I’m really proud of how he has gone about it.

“We understood family is really important to him and where he wanted to base himself. We couldn’t compete with that. We put forward to his agent an offer that was very close to what he was asking for. We didn’t low-ball him from that point of view.

“We didn’t get to the negotiating table because he wanted to be closer to his family on the Central Coast.”