Hunt secured a $6 million deal with the Dragons but will remain in the Queensland capital for 2017.

Soward believes the glamour club would be better off letting the 26-year-old go before the start of the season.   

Soward implored the NRL to allow for transfer fees to be introduced which could see Hunt depart Red Hill immediately.   

“You can obviously see Ben Hunt’s made a career decision, he’s coming down and he’s going to get a lot of money,” Soward told Fox Sports.

“But (it’s) hard when you’ve trained all pre-season knowing that this is it. Does Wayne Bennett just say after one game ‘see you later?’

“Why not bring someone in from the under 20s system and get them into the system?

“I think right now if Brisbane said to St George ‘you can have Ben Hunt if you pay us $200,000’, that would happen straight away.

“At the moment, because they’ve taken away the June 30 deadline, it’s a joke. You’re able to sign contracts 2-3 years ahead of where you wanted to be.

“If you had a transfer fee, they’d say ‘right we’d take him this year, we need a halfback’ and that’s what would’ve happened.”