We've already seen that Melbourne Storm will be able to absorb the loss of Cooper Cronk better than any other club would. They'll simply promote Brodie Croft - who looks to be a Cronk clone - and play him alongside Cameron Munster, while Cameron Smith and Billy Slater should still be there to ease the burden.

Crucial to Melbourne's future success though is their forward pack and after North Queensland Cowboys snapped up Jordan McLean, Melbourne decided that having Sam Kasiano and Nelson Asofa-Solomona in the same forward pack might be a good idea. They'll also bid farewell to Tohu Harris, yet with immense depth led by the low key presence of Queensland forward Tim Glasby for example, Melbourne gon' be alright.

In fact, they could be better.

Next year Melbourne will have a #KiwiNRL gang featuring; Bromwich bros, Kasiano, Asofa-Solomona, Brandon Smith and Jahrome Hughes. Melbourne could roll Aosfa-Solomona and Kasiano off their bench next season which I still haven't really wrapped my head around, which would have Jesse Bromwich and Glasby starting, or Kasiano could start alongside Jesse with Glasby on the bench.

Kasiano is likely to have some of next year's contract paid by the Bulldogs as he was still contract by the Doggies. They need to make space for the arrivals of Aaron Woods and Kieran Foran and after Kasiano signed a reasonably hefty deal for a few years last time around, getting Kasiano off their books should ease salary cap pressure on the Dogs. It's not like coach Des Hasler really sussed out how to best use Kasiano either and while Kasiano was tearing teams apart with his size and skill, the presence of James Graham, Aiden Tolman and David Klemmer cluttered the middle forward group and limited Kasiano's minutes.

In conjunction with signing Kasiano, Melbourne re-signed Asofa-Solomona which is a key move as Asofa-Solomona continues to flourish and that only increases the interest in his services. While Kasiano's signed until 2020, Asofa-Solomona signed a two-year deal, after extending his last contract just for one year and this signals some very smart business from Asofa-Solomona and his agent.

Melbourne would love to sign Asofa-Solomona long-term, although they will see benefit in a two-year deal as they will be able to make a major upgrade to this contract once they get Cameron Smith, Cronk and Slater off their books. And they'll need to have plenty of cash in the cap as Asofa-Solomona is going to have a long list of options to explore. Asofa-Solomona is still just 21-years-old and when he comes off contract at the end of 2019, there will be absolutely no doubt of his ability and interest from around the NRL and rugby union will be immense.

Asofa-Solomona is already the best 30-minute forward in the NRL. By that I mean that no NRL forward has a greater impact in limited game time than Asofa-Solomona as he has only played over 40mins twice in 15 games this season; he's good to average 10m/carry, chuck an offload out and bust tackles in thos 30-35mins though. He's already shown improvement under Bellamy and there's no reason to doubt Asofa-Solomona playing 50 minutes as he continues to develop, which would be scary.

By that time, he'll be a free agent and the league/union world will be his for the taking.

From a Storm perspective, they have locked in a forward pack that will ease the pain of transitioning away from the big-three era. Not only are they already prepared for that transition with Croft, Brandon Smith and perhaps Jahrome Hughes getting crucial minutes while the big-three are still playing, they have a forward pack that won't be dominated and will provide their young play-makers with consistent go-forward, plus funk via offloads and ball-playing.

Don't sleep on Jason Nightingale re-signing with the Dragons either. Nightingale is taking one-year deals at this stage of his career and isn't demanding a whole lot of money, which is exactly what clubs would want from their long-term players. The Dragons will look after Nightingale once he retires but for now, Nightingale's selflessness allows the Dragons greater flexibility in their cap and in the length of contracts.

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