Kieran Foran or Daly Cherry-Evans? That was the agonising choice Manly should have made to avoid losing both of their star playmakers, but the current NRL player transfer system makes it too difficult for clubs to make such decisions.
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With Foran and Cherry-Evans each receiving offers from rival clubs worth more than $1 million a season, it became apparent as negotiations dragged on that the Sea Eagles could only have afforded to keep one of the pair but the club didn't want to choose and has now ended up with neither star on their books.
The difficulty for Manly, and other NRL clubs, is that if they had nominated Cherry-Evans over Foran - or vice-versa - the club would have risked a disgruntled star on their books for the rest of the season and a potential backlash from teammates and fans.
It is a no-win situation that the Sea Eagles had to endure last season after opting not to table an offer for Glenn Stewart, and one St George Illawarra is currently being confronted with over the departure of Trent Merrin to Penrith at the end of the season.
The salary cap has been blamed for those decisions but one rival club boss told Fairfax Media that having to make choices now on players for next season was driving up the value of contracts and making it harder to retain stars.
Rival clubs have the luxury of being able to bid higher and can then tell others already on their roster that there is less money to offer them, whereas the player's current club has to deal with the fallout for the remainder of the season if they lose a big-name player.
Manly and the Dragons only had a certain amount of room under the salary cap to retain their off-contract stars and fill other places on the 2016 roster so were unable to compete with the bids from Parramatta (Foran), Gold Coast (Cherry-Evans) and Penrith (Merrin).
It is a position the Eels now face after snaring Foran on a deal believed to be worth $1 million per year, plus $150,000 in third party deals.
To accommodate him, unsigned halfback Chris Sandow and fullback Will Hopoate are going to need to take a pay cut on their current deals or find another club for 2016 as Parramatta now have just $1.6 million to spend on seven remaining roster spots for next season.
Sydney Roosters five-eighth James Maloney and wingers Shaun Kenny-Dowall and Daniel Tupou may find themselves in the same predicament after the club fended off rival clubs to retain forwards Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Dylan Napa.
Penrith dealt with a similar situation three seasons ago when they released local heroes Luke Lewis, Michael Jennings and Lachlan Coote to free up space in their cap to bring through junior talent such as Matt Moylan, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and Bryce Cartwright plus recruit the likes of Jamie Soward, Peter Wallace and Elijah Taylor.
Lewis, Jennings and Coote were three of the five highest paid players in the Panthers squad and another of the quintet, Tim Grant, was also allowed to leave to join South Sydney.
However, Penrith general manager Phil Gould faced heavy criticism for rigidly sticking to a five-year plan in which he was prepared for the team to be out of premiership contention for several seasons while he transformed the Panthers roster.
A reluctance to make similar hard decisions has left Manly, St George Illawarra, Parramatta and some other clubs with the salary cap problems they are now trying to sort out, which included the Dragons having two wingers - Brett Morris and Jason Nightingale - among their highest paid players and a star-studded backline but little forward depth.
At Manly, back-ended deals that enabled the Sea Eagles to keep together the nucleus of a side that featured in four grand finals in seven years - winning two - has now come back to haunt them, with the club not having the room to accommodate Foran and Cherry-Evans.
However, it was their unwillingness to choose between the pair that ultimately cost them both.
