League pounces on union’s young stars
NRL clubs have begun picking at the carcass of a decimated Rugby Australia, knowing the 15-a-side game can no longer keep paying their elite juniors.
It was revealed in News Corp newspapers yesterday that Rugby Australia has blown $500m over the past four years and could be heading down the path of insolvency with no TV broadcast deal.
The NRL clubs are poised to attack rugby’s established stars and elite pathway rookies, who had been earmarked as future Wallabies, with Jordan Petaia, Harry Wilson and Mark Nawaqanitawase the obvious targets of multimillion-dollar raids.
“There could be a massive influx of their players,” league immortal Bob Fulton said.
“Union is on its knees financially while we’re getting our act together with Peter V’landys in charge.”
Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart spent two weeks at the rugby union World Cup i late last year as a guest of English coach Eddie Jones.
Unlike the old days when only a small percentage of union players were suitable to convert to league, Stuart says “85 per cent of their players are now athletically built for the powerful and explosive style of rugby league”.
“I definitely think rugby is vulnerable right now and it could become a wonderful nursery for our game. At the end of the day all kids want to play in a high performance sport.
“They don’t care if it’s league or union. They want to be on TV playing an elite competition.
“And with the intensity of our training, we’d turn them into even better players.”
The best teenage footballer in the country in either code, 16-year-old Kings school student Joseph Suaalii, has been the centre of a tug ’o war between Rugby Australia and the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Rugby union now has no hope of signing him. RA has signed a host of top Wallabies and under-20s stars to longterm deals but, without a lucrative broadcast deal to boost their finances beyond 2020, it’s improbable they’ll be able to honour every deal and players can explore options from September under the pay cut deal negotiated by RUPA.
Warriors recruitment boss Peter O’Sullivan is regarded the best scout in the business. and discovered the likes of Greg Inglis and Israel Folau at Melbourne Storm and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Latrell Mitchell and Joseph Manu at the Roosters.