The battle to find rugby league's next superstar is so intense that NRL clubs are paying teenagers double what they're worth and sometimes more than regular first graders.

Leading recruitment manager Peter O'Sullivan, of the Sydney Roosters, says it is impossible to secure a star of the future nowadays without paying him as much as a first grader.

The best teenagers in the country are being offered guaranteed salaries close to $70,000 a year, with incentives that can swell their earnings beyond $100,000.

And it's the inclusion of the national under 20s competition that is partly to blame for the inflated prices.

NRL clubs don't want to build a premiership-winning 20s team - they'd prefer to find the next star from that group - but can't afford the best potential players and remain under the $250,000 salary cap.

O'Sullivan says it is not uncommon for leading junior players to be in a club's top tier squad and for regular NRL players to be paid less on the second tier.

"If someone is worth $40,000 for instance, you cannot afford to put them in your under 20s salary cap so you have to actually give them $60,000 or $70,000 to get them into your top tier 25," said O'Sullivan.

"It is inflated and a lot of it is to do with the 20s salary cap to be honest because you really can't afford to put them into the 20s cap.

"There is going to be a shift between the haves and the have nots ... everyone is going to want the high quality kid and to pay more for them and just pick up those, not to be disparaging, run of the mill first graders a bit later on.

"Your perfect scenario in your 20s squad is you want five or six quality first graders coming through who are on good dollars and signed long term and then you want a heap of hungry kids playing for their lives basically."

The rise in teenage stars on inflated contracts continued this week with Manly securing 16-year-old schoolboy William Hopoate, son of infamous winger John, on a deal reportedly valued at $300,000 for three years.

The Sea Eagles deny the deal is worth that much, but O'Sullivan insists Hopoate will be like one of many kids earning more than someone playing in the NRL week in week out - even if the reported figures are inflated.

"It is possible earnings, not guaranteed, and that is where it can be misleading," said O'Sullivan.

"(But) the average run of the mill player will be on second tier and he might be on $54,000 playing full time and someone like William Hopoate will be going to school and earning $60,000 or $70,000 without any chance of being in top grade for, you would think, at least another year."

Sea Eagles chief executive Grant Mayer insists Hopoate is being paid what an elite player his age is worth, and Manly are willing to invest time and money to help realise his full potential.

"He will earn what is right for a 16-year-old boy, but he has an opportunity if he plays first grade to do pretty well for himself," said Mayer.

"Hopoate is a talent we want to develop further under our coaching structures and if every club has one of those kids I think that is not an issue.

"We can't see that he will play first grade in 2009 but we certainly think he will be a very, very talented first grader come 2010 and 2011."

But Mayer knows highly-touted teenagers are a minefield, the path to NRL stardom littered by many `next Sonny Bill Williams' types who just don't make it.

"I just don't think we do ourselves any favours by trotting out figures, in most cases fictional figures, to the general public," he said.

"They're not accurate and it sets a false expectation amongst the player group.

"There have been kids in the last two or three years tossed up as superstars and where are they now? How many have actually come through?

"We are placing a lot of pressure on these kids to perform."

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