CAN the Newcastle Knights afford to keep Dominic Young? Perhaps the real question should be whether they can afford to lose him.
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Young, the 21-year-old English flyer, has been described as the hottest free agent in rugby league as he enters the final season of his contract with Newcastle.
After a breakout 2022 campaign, in which he scored 14 tries in 20 games, Young further enhanced his reputation with some standout performances for England at the recent World Cup.
The Knights have already kicked off negotiations with the towering winger, who they signed as an unknown teenager with two Super League games under his belt, but they can expect fierce competition from a host of rival clubs, reportedly headed by South Sydney.
How keen Newcastle officials are to enter into a bidding war for his services remains to be seen.
As Josh Addo-Carr showed when he left Melbourne to join Canterbury last season, wingers typically rank towards the bottom of the pecking order when clubs are carving up the salary cap.
Some might say they're a dime a dozen.
But in any era, great finishers have traditionally been worth their weight in gold, and there seems little doubt that Young has merely scratched the surface of his potential.
In 26 NRL games over the past two seasons, he has already scored 18 tries.
That means he's averaging a try in 69 per cent of his games. To put that in context, Newcastle's all-time leading tryscorer, Akuila Uate, crossed the stripe 110 times in 161 appearance in his nine seasons with the club.
Uate's strike rate for the Knights was 68 per cent.
Perhaps what is most impressive about Young's tryscoring feats is that of his 26 games, the Knights have won only eight.
Moreover, only one team - Canterbury - has scored fewer points than Newcastle over the past two seasons.
Imagine, in other words, how much more dangerous Young could be if he was playing on the end of a well-oiled backline.
The two biggest wins he has played in thus far were against North Queensland (38-0) in 2021, and against Gold Coast (38-12) last season. In the first of those games he scored a double, in the second he delivered a hat-trick.
In a team playing regularly on the front foot and dominating the opposition, there is no reason why Young's strike rate would not skyrocket.
If he was to re-sign with Newcastle for the long haul, it would appear only a matter of time before he was challenging Uate's club-record tally.
There is, of course, more to wing play in the modern era than just getting over the line.
Young may have had his odd lapse under the high ball, and last season he missed more than 20 per cent of the tackles he attempted, which are both areas he will need to improve.
But there is no questioning his willingness to carry the ball into the ruck, and at 200 centimetres and 107 kilograms, he can bend any defensive line.
In addition to what he provides on the field, Young is emerging as a personality player. As was the case in the early years of Uate's career, he brings the crowd to their feet whenever he touches the ball with room to move.
According to the Knights' website, when he appeared last year on their in-house podcast, it was their highest-rating episode. No prizes for guessing how those listeners are likely to react if Young leaves Newcastle for greener pastures.
By all accounts, the lad from Huddersfield enjoys the Novocastrian lifestyle and has made some firm friendships over the past two years.
That surely gives Newcastle officials the inside running, providing their offer stacks up financially, and providing they can convince Young the team's downturn last season was a one-off.
The bottom line is that his best years are still ahead of him. It would be a shame for Knights fans if he spends them at another club.
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