One of the NRL’s most reliable try-scorers may be headed to the Super League in 2025 if his present team accepts proposals to cut his enormous salary.
That man is Fijian international Maika Sivo with the 30-year-old Parramatta Eels winger potentially in the shop window despite being contracted through the 2025 season.
Not only is Sivo contracted, he’s on a whopping salary of $550,000, or approximately £285,000, but the Eels winger may well not play that year of his contract out at Parramatta Stadium.
Despite registering seven tries in his five NRL games this season and being in line to play against fellow strugglers South Sydney Rabbitohs tomorrow, Sivo has been dropped to the New South Wales Cup side in 2024.
That was the first time he has made the drop back down since 2022, however on that occasion the Fijian was returning from injury and during his stint in the NSW Cup he clocked six tries in three before rounding out the NRL season with 13 in 16.
Sivo also missed game time earlier this season after a nasty shot on Gold Coasts’s AJ Brimson with the winger handed a three-game ban before eventually being dropped in Round Six. Whilst it appears that he has worked his way back into the first-team squad, talk of his exit has begun to swirl.
With his large contract weighing down on the Eels amidst Sivo’s difficult start to 2024 and the club generally in transition after the axing of Brad Arthur after eleven years, it could be the case that there is a clearout at Parra for 2025 and Sivo could be a victim of that.
Sam Burgess has been one of those names placed on the shortlist to replace Arthur but for now Trent Barrett has taken interim charge until the end of the season but it’s unclear who the next head coach will be, or if they’ll have Sivo in their plans.
How good is Sivo’s try-scoring record?
Over the previous five signs, since announcing himself to the NRL back in 2019, Sivo has been one of the league’s most consistent wingers and has always troubled the try-scoring charts.
Prior to this campaign, Sivo had made 103 NRL appearances and scored an impressive 87 tries with his debut campaign in 2019 that saw him score 22 in 25 representing his best performance in terms of both tries and appearances.
Only last season, he still managed twenty in twenty and his current tally of seven in five is incredibly impressive but that’s not stopped talk of him being shopped.
Fellow NRL journalist discussed Sivo’s future alongside Carayannis and confirmed the talk of a Super League move after revealing that the Fijian is on “about $550,000”.
He added: “I think the Cowboys were looking at it but they haven’t got the cap room at the moment. And he is being shopped overseas as well.”
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