Halfpenny takes cut of £200k to go home

WALES have brought Leigh Halfpenny home for around £200,000 less than they offered him last season.

The Rugby Paper can reveal the full extent of the player’s depreciating market value behind the longest transfer saga of the professional era and how the WRU finally got their man in a cut-price deal. Last season they pushed the boat out a lot further in what chief executive Martyn Phillips described then as having made “the best offer we possibly can”.

With Halfpenny’s stock soaring before the Six Nations, the Union upped the ante jointly with Cardiff Blues to £420,000-ayear for three years – £1.26m. The dual contract he signed with Wales and Scarlets four days ago is understood to be for £350,000-a-year – £1.05m over three years.

Despite an annual reduction of £70,000, Halfpenny is still among the highest paid in the elite stable of Welsh players on dual contracts, a list headed by Sam Warburton and Alun-Wyn Jones. But it still adds up to a substantial drop in pay.

“That’s the price Leigh has paid for his indecision,’’ one club negotiator said yesterday. “Professional sport is a business like any other and you can only wait so long for someone to make up his mind.

“It’s been like a soap opera. He had loads of options a short while ago but somehow got himself boxed into a corner which meant that in the end he didn’t have any choice but to go back to Wales.’’

Having made it clear only last month that they could not afford Halfpenny, the Scarlets took advantage of two factors to close the deal. The £500,000 windfall generated by the PRO14’s South African dimension gave them the wherewithal to renew negotiations knowing they were in a buyer’s market for a player running out of options.

Their 40 per cent contribution to his salary means the Scarlets have signed one of the world’s most dependable goalkickers for an annual outlay of no more than £140,000. In other words they will pay him in a year what Neymar will earn in a day at Paris St Germain.

Halfpenny’s earning capacity has been almost halved in a matter of months. Having made him the third highest paid player in club rugby at £600,000-a-year, Toulon were reported to be offering their Welshman a 25 per cent hike to £750,000.

Wasps, as revealed in The Rugby Paper, withdrew their £400,000-a-year bid because they had run out of patience waiting for Halfpenny to put pen to paper. Bath also lost interest.