Angus Crichton eyes return to rugby union

Apart from the money and opportunity promising school leavers might also keen to play in front of a crowd of more than a few dozen for their weekly matches. Although for regular weekly good crowds AFL is top of the pops there.

I wonder how many of those players will retire there tho.

Yeah they basically said they didn’t expect him to make it until he was about 23. He followed opportunity. Don’t blame him at all.

I read somewhere that because NSW didn't promise he would be in the starting side he looked to the NRL. To be fair to NSW it's a big call to guarantee a spot to a kid straight out of school. Especially a back rower.

Rugby Australia is a joke because the Waratahs failed to secure an 18 year old player?

David Pocock, George Smith, Steve Moore, Jeremy Paul, David Giffin, etc.

Well he's playing State of Origin now which is about the highest level you can achieve in league so I don;t really get teh comparison. the difference is he could choose to stay in league and play at Paramatta, Illawarra, Brisbane or Cronulla. Or he could switch to rugby and play at Cape town, Buenos Aires, Rome, Dublin, Chicago, Paris, ..........

Badger, you’re doing some grand inferencing there. RA need to look at the entire structure that they’re participating in. My financial acumen tells me you can’t go on losing money over fist forever- which is a fair summation of the status quo.

Who would?!

Speaking of McMahon... does anyone know whether he might be in the zone to come back into contention next year? Or is he totally signed up in Japan through end of 2019? Cheers P

Somehow the ARU are supposed to fund the Force who struggle for eastern based players (ditto Western Reds RL in the past and future) and pay enough to keep people going to NRL (with its pokies and big broadcast deal). Do you guys have any financial acumen or you just think they can borrow forever??

Agree with that and agree with TWAS in that academies aren’t going to be a ‘game changer’ in terms of increasing our ability to hold onto young rugby talent. What hurts us like nothing else in this regard is that there are now only 4 destinations to ply your trade as a professional rugby player in Australia. This is compared to 15 in the NRL. Dropping the Force and decreasing our footprint in this regard was enormously short sighted and a huge backward step for the game in this country. RA needs to be exploring options for going the other way and increasing opportunities for players and most importantly more fans to see and engage with the game.

Which is why cuttting the Force was such a dumb idea. The Japanese already have professional club competition - we don't. The Japanese domestic game doesn't need to Sunwolves, if anything it creates challenges for them. Domestic Australian rugby does need to Force given our limited professional opportunities. The ARU should have fought harder to keep the Force rather than undermining them.

Fifita left due to the fact that he didn't want to live in Canberra.

Fifita didn’t leave for a clear pathway. He left for a full time salary. Even after JON stupidly played with things - the Reds and Waratahs still had these pathways and their own programs. The Rebels too.

You think I don't know Larry. Crichton has stated publicly that he wanted to play Rugby but the Tahs weren't clear about what he had to do to play Super Rugby. We all know how ordinary the Tahs are at recruiting. Just look at the amount of players that left under their nose. As for Cameron players will come to Rugby when there is a clear pathway the Brumbies are now providing that after O'Neill took it away.

Whens the last time Roosters lost a player they wanted to keep esp with NRL (wink wink) behind it. They have special relationship with NRL because Gyngell ex Channel 9 boss (and league rights holder) is a Roosters Board member. They signed SBW in November on big $$$ in November one year because Gyngell complained Roosters needed something to compete against Swans signing Buddy Franklin and so they got their wish and didn't release any players. Schubert ex easts was still salary cap official at the time. The RU disputes Crichtons version of the meeting with RU where potentially they suggested he wouldn't get a big Super Rugby contract to start whereas Souths were able to offer him a big contract right away.

Correct Rob9. Sadly the ARU will not adopt the required approach because the ARU is too damned lazy. Until the ARU board is reconstituted this will remain the case.

Just remember Bakkies, a lot of these Aussie kids you refer to as having a background in Union have been junior league players who got poached by the GPS/private Union schools on scholarships to bolster those schools teams. Often played both or, because of the scholarship terms, dropped out of junior league for the period they attended the schools. Not saying there's anything wrong with that but a lot of them aren't from grassroots Union backgrounds. Prevalent in Qld & NSW but not so much in the UK or Sth Africa where league is not a major code.

Exactly. Players don't go because they are ignored. They go because there's more full time livable wages in Rugby League. Academies won't really change that. Even without set ups defined as "academies" the Super Rugby franchises have always had various arrangements outside the official squad. I think during the time of the National Academy, Beau Robinson was at the Reds as a non-official squad member originally for example.