Wallabies 'filthy' as Suaalii Roosters twist looms
Story by WWOS staff
There could be a twist in Joseph Suaalii's code hopping future with The Continuous Call Team's Neil Breen reporting that the young star could yet remain in the NRL with the Sydney Roosters.
Suaalii is set to join Rugby Australia's ranks in October on a lucrative contract through to 2027.
But Nine's Breen says that deal is not necessarily a fait accompli.
"I can tell you for a fact that the Roosters are working overtime to keep him at the club," he said.
"Everyone talks about 'oh, you know, after he does the three years in rugby, they want to get him back,' but the Roosters keep working overtime to keep him. Joey Manu, who's going to French rugby, we know that James Tedesco's not getting any younger.
"Here's this guy, they've got him there already, but he's done that deal with rugby. The issue would be whether rugby would be sympathetic to let him out of the deal and they would be because of the size of it.
"And there's all sorts of things about clauses that are in the contract. The difficulty might be that his management would say to rugby: 'well hang on a second, if you want to let us out of this contract, we've signed the deal, there's got to be some compensation'."
RA chief executive Phil Waugh admitted last week that there had been $2.6 million of "unapproved" spending throughout last year's doomed Rugby World Cup campaign.
"A broke sport pays a bloke to not come - that wouldn't go down well with the mainstream," Breen said.
"But what's going on in rugby is that other players of that kind of ilk - there's Jordan Petaia who's been a Wallabies outside back for a long time - like those players are filthy about the whole situation.
"That someone's coming across to rugby, earning that massive amount of money."
Dragons coach Shane Flanagan is reportedly keen to sign Petaia.
"Those things are unsettling for the rugby hierarchy," Breen said.
"Whether it can be done, I don't know, but it's definitely not totally out of the realms of possibility that something like that could happen that and Suaalii doesn't go as well. The financial fragility of Rugby Australia at the moment is there for everyone to see...
"There's all sorts of problems in rugby."
Dragons coach Shane Flanagan is reportedly keen to sign Petaia.
Thinking that's still a win for Union, solves a problem...
