NRL 2026: Why Liam Martin might be worth $1 million a season despite poor statistics on paper, Clive Churchill, big moments, salary cap, PNG Chiefs, Penrith Panthers

Liam Martin’s value to the Penrith Panthers can’t be summed up on paper – even if he has an asking price.

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The back-rower is gunning for his fifth premiership at the Panthers and may reinforce why he’s worth the $1 million a season he’s asking for when he takes on the Knights this Sunday.

Martin has put contract talks with Penrith on hold until the season is over.

He wants the club to make him a $1 million per season player – a lot of cash for a player who doesn’t stand out on the stats page each week.

But if you look beyond the surface, and speak to Martin’s teammates, you get a better idea for the influence he has had on the Penrith dynasty and why he may be worth paying so much.

Martin had a brief negotiation with Penrith about extending his deal in August but those talks were quickly put on hold until the end of the season.

“I obviously don’t really want that sort of thing going on as a distraction,” Martin said on finals eve.

The 29-year-old wants to extend at Penrith for a further three years which would tie him to the club until the end of 2030.

“I’m hoping that there’s a spot for me here and obviously there’s a long gap until November 1, so we’ll have to wait and see,” Martin said.

Penrith doesn’t have a problem with the length of the extension demand, given Martin will only be 33 at the end of the 2030 season.

And he doesn’t have to worry about Penrith reserving a place for him on their roster post-2027. They want to keep him.

The issue will come down to money.

Martin’s currently on about $750,000 a season, but his management is seeking a hefty upgrade to around the $1 million mark.

That sort of money is generally reserved for scoreboard changers, and that will be Martin’s trump card play.

When he re-negotiates with Penrith at the end of the season, there’s one argument he will avoid in the hope of convincing the Panthers he’s worth $1 million per season.

STATS DON’T TELL THE FULL STORY

Generally, the more you work the more you get paid.

If Martin wants to get his millions, he won’t be bringing out the stats sheet to convince Penrith he’s worth it.

How does he compare with his back-row peers?

During the past five years he averages 9.8 runs per game (25th of all players with 50-plus games on an edge over that period), 81m per game (24th) and 27.9 tackles (20th).

On paper, he arguably shouldn’t be getting the $750,000 he’s on let alone $1 million.

His statistics in the four grand final wins he was a part of for Penrith were virtually identical to his overall career stats.

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Yet he’s got a Clive Churchill Medal to go alongside his four rings.

“There’s players that are obviously high up in stats, but then there’s some that just bring presence,” Penrith teammate Izack Tago told foxsports.com.au.

“When Marto’s on the field, players feel that, especially the opposition.

“Playing with him, it’s just the moments where he accelerates and you accelerate with him.

“It just picks up the energy of the team when he makes those big plays like he did in the grand final. He’s always there when the time’s needed.”

Tago got the most close-up experience of how Martin can decide a premiership.

By the 60th minute in the 2024 grand final against the equally ruthless Melbourne Storm, Penrith was leading 10-6.

They and the Storm weren’t giving an inch and were going set-for-set like other teams in the NRL could only dream of.

Both teams defended shape so well and the result was likely to hinge on a moment, or a freak play.

He had less than 10 carries at that point and only ended up running for 81m in that game.

But it was his running without the ball that got Penrith over the line.

He ran a lovely line to score in the first half but that try was more down to Nathan Cleary’s ball-playing.

Martin’s moment in the 60th minute was all him.

As he so often does, he sprinted down the field to chase a Cleary high ball and outleapt winger Xavier Coates to come down with the footy before offloading to Moses Leota who handed Paul Alamoti the ball to score.

Tago had the best seat in the house as the play unfolded.

“I was running next to him. I remember we were both running down the field and he just had a better run to the ball,” he said.

“Then I could see he was backing himself, so obviously I didn’t want to go in and stuff it up.

“I knew he’s good in the air when he gets up, so I let him do his thing and just watching it unfold was a special moment.”

The try got Penrith out to an eight-point lead and from there they never really looked like losing.

“It was a massive moment because we still had a little bit of time but it put us in a good state,” Tago said.

“It affects all the players around him and just lifts them to a high standard and when one player’s playing well it helps everyone else play well too.”

Throw in the game’s only one-on-one steal, and Martin was judged player of the match.

The guy who stood out least on paper, had the biggest effect on the scoreline.

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Penrith hooker Mitch Kenny said Martin had the ability to pick his moments, rather than just go hammer and tongs for 80 minutes.

It’s why he’s able to come up with the big plays.

“He definitely has a real feel for the game. He knows when to accelerate and he’s done that at the right time for big games,” Kenny said.

“He might not be statistically what people think would be the best back-rower in the comp, but we love him, we love everything he does for his club and the way he plays. He’s super important for us.”

Martin reminded everyone about his game-changing ability in the first week of the finals when he jumped above a pack of Roosters to score a crucial try in a low-scoring qualifying final.

WILL PENRITH GO OUTSIDE THEIR CAP PRINCIPLES?

When Martin’s contract negotiations were put on hold in August his manager Allan Gainey said that “talks were productive”.

Another leading player agent Steve Gillis said on a podcast last week that he was hearing Martin was closer to re-signing with Penrith than moving on.

“I think Liam Martin would like to stay and if they can work a deal I think he will stay, unless someone comes along and has a chomp at him,” he said.

Penrith has produced the greatest dynasty the game has seen since St George in the 1960s.

There are many reasons why they’ve been able to do it, but one has been astute salary cap management.

Think of a Penrith player who’s been overpaid since 2020. There’s none.

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Clubs that overpay players don’t win competitions.

Penrith has been disciplined in not overpaying players, even those who have helped the club win grand finals.

While they wanted him to stay, the club never considered, for example, matching the Wests Tigers offer of $1.2 million a season for Jarome Luai despite the fact he won four comps at the Panthers and was a State of Origin player.

They’ve done the same with the likes of Matt Burton, Viliame Kikau, Stephen Crichton and Spencer Leniu and went on to win a title in 2024 without them all.

The club hasn’t even handed its captain and all-time great Isaah Yeo a contract worth $1 million a year.

Last month, Braith Anasta asked the panel on NRL 360 what they thought of Martin being paid $1 million a season by Penrith.

“That’s a big decision for Penrith to make because they need to prioritise some other guys. Obviously they want to try and get Nathan Cleary done,” journalist Brent Read said.

“A million dollars, that’s going to put a real strain on their salary cap.”

It’s hard to imagine the club would offer Martin more than Yeo.

But the players know what he brings to the organisation.

“Marto’s always been that guy to put up his hand whenever the moment or the occasion rises and the opportunity presents itself,” champion winger Brian To’o told foxsports.com.au.

“He’s the first one to put up his hand. He’s definitely my favourite back-rower. I wouldn’t have it any other way to have him in my team.”

Penrith Panthers CEO Matt Cameron spoke on the Bye Round podcast last year and talked about how he and his team dealt with the salary cap.

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He revealed that 11 people at the Panthers worked together to manage the salary cap.

He said the club has only given a player more than they wanted once, “and we didn’t exceed it by much”.

“We are absolutely striving to get to a point where we do a contract, we feel that it’s a good contract for the club and it’s a good contract for the player, and the management is happy with it,” Cameron added.

He said the club had a calculation of what it thinks the starting 13 should absorb of the salary cap.

And that the club never went over that spend.

“We talk about making disciplined salary cap decisions. You can either make disciplined decisions or undisciplined decisions,” Cameron said.

“I think sometimes you can absolutely fall in love with a young man that’s come through your system and has been very successful and we think he’s worth $5, but we get pressed and we’ve got to pay him $7, and then you go, ‘really, is that really disciplined?’ And I think we’ve been able to manage the cap.

“We’ve got some guiding principles, I suppose, on how we manage it, and we just try and stick to those guidelines.

“One of the guiding principles is the underspend. We ensure that we carry what I think is a reasonably healthy underspend. So we never run the cap up to its limit.”

Casey McLean is yet to win a title with Martin, but it could happen on Sunday week if they beat the Knights this weekend.

He told foxsports.com.au that Martin, who has played 16 State of Origin matches for NSW and seven Tests for Australia, makes players around him better, only adding to his value to the team.

“He’s the definition of a dog. He does the nitty-gritty stuff that you don’t see many people do,” McLean said.

“He doesn’t get all the 100-plus metres a game and all the tries, but if you were looking for someone to do something, he never backs down, he never shies away from a challenge.

“You see him do it, then you’re like why can’t I do it?

“That kind of riles up everyone. He’s the one that brings a little bit of fire to us.

“He’s a big one to lead from the front. He plays his game and you know that he thrives and then all of us boys don’t want to get left behind.”

His backrow partner in crime Isaiah Papali’i faced off against Martin when he was playing for Parramatta in the 2022 grand final.

He warned the club might regret letting him play against it.

“The aggression he plays with is intimidating for other people and he’s an awesome person to have in your team rather than play against,” he told foxsports.com.au.

“He turns up in places where you don’t think anybody’s going to be and he’ll do it. Everything’s at 100 per cent for him and he leaves it all out there.”

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WILL PENRITH FORCE MARTIN INTO A DILEMMA?

Martin’s preference is to stay at Penrith, but there’s a good chance the disciplined football department will ask him to stay for a little less than the $1 million he’s seeking.

If that happens, Martin will face a tough decision knowing what the reality is for players who leave the Panthers.

There’s currently 12 NRL players who won a premiership at Penrith who are now on holidays after an unsuccessful season at their current club.

They may be earning more since they moved on from Penrith, but they’d love to be talking about playing in a preliminary final this weekend.

Martin admitted he was “bitter” watching last year’s grand final between Melbourne and Brisbane after the Broncos knocked Penrith out in the preliminary final.

“It was different. To watch it as a fan. It was just dead silence. I think everyone sort of had the same feeling of watching and just wishing it was us,” Martin said.

“That loss certainly burned. There was definitely that feeling of just being so close, but letting it slip.”

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Foxsports.com.au asked Martin about the prospect of watching Penrith continue their success without him if he leaves at the end of 2027.

“Success is so addictive and what we’ve got here is just an incredible culture and this club is going to be very successful for a long time so it’d be hard to walk away,” he said.

But then again, the PNG Chiefs could nearly double his wages for three years and there’s no doubt that they’d like to come November 1.

If the Panthers ask Martin to accept less than $1 million in order to keep their dynasty going, he’ll be faced with a dilemma.

The money would be better at the Chiefs but premierships are priceless.

“Obviously there could be more money elsewhere, but money’s not everything at the end of the day. It’s also about enjoying your footy and I’ve got a great bunch of mates here,” Martin said.

“I’ve been in Penrith for 10 years now so there’s a lot to weigh up and it’s not an easy decision, but one I’ll have to make in due time.”