A DISBELIEVING Matthew Johns has declared a bizarre situation in which Newcastle could be penalised for failing to spend enough of next season’s salary cap “ridiculous” after it was revealed the Knights are about $2 million under the $9.4 million cap.

After three years of suffering caused by overvaluing players that chewed up too much salary cap space, it would be the ultimate irony if Newcastle were punished for failing to spend 95 per cent of their cap by June 30 next year.

However, with upwards of $1.6 million to be spent before they get to the required $8.93 million mark, the Knights are in grave danger of underspending.

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It’s a situation that Johns finds puzzling, claiming on Triple M’s The Grill Team that it penalised good business and failed to take into account the club’s inability to catch a big fish.

“These are the players they’ve chased and haven’t got: Jack Bird, Cooper Cronk, Matt Lodge, James Maloney, Matt Scott and they’re currently chasing Mitchell Pearce, so I do find it, I would say strange and wrong that the NRL tries to force you to spend money, then all of a sudden in a year or two they might say, ‘oh no, you’ve got to pull back a little bit’,” Johns said.

“ ... In particular in the case of the Knights, what they’ve done is they’ve gone out and landed some really good talent.

“Kalyn Ponga is their star signing, Tautau Moga, who they got from the Broncos, has been in great form, Connor Watson, Ese’ese, Aidan Guerra, an experienced player — they’ve got some really good players and more to the point they’ve got some really good players at a decent price.

“So if they were able to negotiate a certain rate for these players, why should they be penalised, and why should they be forced to spend money frivolously — if they can’t get the players they’re after why should they have to spend it?”

Connor Watson and Kalyn Ponga are two promising Knights signings.

The Knights’ last chance of pushing their cap spend up somewhere close to the required mark might be luring Pearce away from the Roosters, with the star playmaker’s future still uncertain.

However, it is understood that Pearce is not keen on the idea of moving to Newcastle, potentially leaving the Knights in an impossible predicament.

The only other marquee star facing speculation over his future is Jarryd Hayne but it would seem ridiculous to force Newcastle to chase such a divisive character just so they can spend more money.

If they miss Pearce and give Hayne a wide berth, the only other mechanism that could help them stay cap compliant would be to frontload existing contracts, which could potentially free up a huge amount of space for a signing spree for 2019 and beyond.

Johns said Knights coach Nathan Brown and general manager of football Darren Mooney had done extremely well to ensure every signing they had made would serve a purpose.

To be forced to bin their philosophy to better align the club with what the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is trying to achieve would be backwards thinking.

Mitchell Pearce is Newcastle’s latest big name transfer target.

“They could have easily just gone out and spent money, because it’s not their money, it’s the club’s money, so they could spend it hand over fist,” Johns said.

“But they’ve made the decision, ‘no, no, we’re only going to spend it on the players we want who are going to serve a purpose’, so that’s why they find themselves in this position.”

Johns encouraged Newcastle to go after Pearce, saying he would be a “handy” pick up who could accelerate the team’s development but said the club was already in a good position to push for the top eight in 2018.

“I think they’re going to have a really good season,” he said.

“I think they will be looking at a mid-table finish and if it’s a good season and they get off to a good start they might just slip into the semi-finals.”