The Tigers have some of the best young junior talent in the game but chief executive Grant Mayer warned they could not afford to keep investing in grassroots football if they were simply developing players for rivals to pick off.

"The reality is James will play against us next year and when he makes his Canberra debut we get nothing from that after spending money on him for eight years," Mayer said.

"For us, that's not sustainable. If we're going to continue being one of four or five clubs developing players over many years, the NRL has to seriously consider how they assist those developing clubs. At the end of the day, if 25 per cent of the 16 teams are doing all the development, we are the ones losing that money.

"Development costs could be anywhere between $600,000 and a million a year, and we don't get any return for that apart from feeling nice about the fact we develop players."

Mayer said it was not a case of "sour grapes" and pointed to the fact the joint-venture outfit recently retained seven of the eight local juniors it had produced on long-term contracts. Rather than asking for salary cap dispensation, the premiership-winning administrator said the NRL should offer a club that loses a player it developed to a rival a fee – say, $50,000 if he plays first grade, $75,000 for Origin and $100,000 for Test representation. That money would then be reinvested into grassroots and development, which could benefit the game as a whole.