Miller keen to carry on abroad after Wasps exit
WHEN Wasps report back for pre-season this week, versatile back Rob Miller will be a notable absentee.
Miller’s eight years at the club came to an end last month, the full-back/ fly-half a victim of professional rugby’s escalating job crisis.
An estimated 70 players like Miller were left without a contract at the season’s end, and while some have since found a new employer, there is still a large group – including former England players Mike Brown and Joe Simpson – for whom the future is uncertain.
Being out of work is a new experience for Miller who made his Premiership debut for Newcastle in 2008 and has had an unbroken top-flight career ever since, at Sale Sharks and until recently Wasps.
But the reduced £5 million salary cap has changed the recruitment landscape and hard-up Premiership clubs are now looking to academy players to boost first-team numbers, leaving ‘squad’ players out in the cold.
The Championship was once an escape route but that is no longer the case following swingeing RFU funding cuts.
Miller acknowledges his Premiership career is likely to be over but, at 32, the Cumbrian still feels he’s got plenty to offer.
“I am aware of how tough the current climate is,” he said. “The change to the salary cap has created a pool of out-of-contract players, but it’s just another thing in professional sport that you cannot control. It’s a very unstable industry and with time you just learn to accept that.
“Quite a few things are up in the air at the minute, I am kind of looking at a number of options across the leagues and, locationwise, different countries as well. There are a few different options with other leagues going on.
“I am sitting tight at the minute, letting things play out, and will go from there whilst also working on some off-field stuff as well so if nothing comes to fruition I will transition into something off field. I am spending some time keeping those links going.
“I am quite interested in the management consultancy world, there is a bit of a link between high performance sport, which I have been involved in for 15 years, and also leadership culture.
“My policy at the minute is saying yes to everything, But the lads I have been speaking tell me to take my time because you don’t need the answers straight away.
“I have been having quite a few conversations with people in different areas and getting in and seeing what they do and then seeing if that is something that interests me.”
Miller admits that it’s the structure of the working week that he’ll miss – not pre-season training – if this is him done. “The fitness test will probably
give me a wry smile, not having to do that, although I was training this morning and put myself
through the ringer a bit,” he said. “That part will feel strange because, as rugby players we are creatures of habit, we like routine and structure.
“To have that taken away is probably quite tough so the important thing for me now is having some structure to the day, and I’ve been doing that by setting up meetings and keeping busy with little projects and that has helped to fill the gap.”
Miller made the first of his 173 Premiership appearances against Bristol as an 18-year-old fly-half, having been released from England U20’s Grand Slam decider against Ireland, to become the third-youngest player ever to represent Falcons.
“Rugby’s been brilliant to me,” he adds. “I can’t believe how quickly it has gone. You blink and you are all the way through. It’s been a hell of a ride. I have massively enjoyed playing in the Premiership; it is a unique league.
“When there has been relegation, there’s been some real good scraps and then there’s the run that we went on, when I first moved to Wasps, making the final, and the move to Coventry as well. There is never a dull day in rugby.”
With a new contract in English rugby looking unlikely, Miller could look to Japan, France and the USA to extend his pro career by another year or two. But with one preschool child and a second on the way at the end of September, moving isn’t as straightforward as when he was a fresh-faced lad leaving Newcastle for Sale.
“It’s not liking being a 22-year-old when you can pack a bag and be somewhere that afternoon. But we are looking at a couple of options and we’ll see.
“I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to stay in the Premiership since the start of my career, so the chance to experience something else would be really good.
“The stuff abroad excites me. Japan and America, those countries throw up a totally different rugby experience. It is something I would be interested in if the right option came around.”