The Roosters won’t be able to convince Joseph Suallii to backflip on his $5 million with Rugby Australia.
That’s according to veteran journalist Phil Rothfield in the wake of reports the Roosters are working behind the scenes to get the young gun out of the deal.
Suallii has signed a three-year contract with RA from 2023, but a 2GB report this week of the Tricolours trying to get him to renege on the deal with fellow centre Joey Manu’s impending switch to French rugby.
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But Rothfield told NRL 360 on Monday night that he doesn’t believe even the all-powerful Roosters will be able to pull this one off.
“Just before I came on air I spoke to Phil Gould, the chief executive of Rugby Australia, there’s been rumours around this city for the last 48 hours that Joseph Suaalii will back out of his Rugby Australia contract,” Rothfield said.
“Phil Waugh insisted that will not happen, that he’s locked in for three years.
“The Roosters have lost Joey Manu, they can’t go to Suaalii and try and entice him to break the rugby contract because it’s illegal.
“The other problem for Easts and not even Nick Politis or the Roosters’ cap can find $1.5 million to match the rugby offer.
“So my mail is he’ll go ahead and join rugby for three years.”
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The 2GB report also said RA might be willing to bin the deal because established Wallabies players are steaming that Suaalii will be paid double their salary.
But that would also come with problems.
“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,” Neil Breen said.
“The difficulty might be that his management would say to rugby, well hang on a second if you now want to let us out of this contract. We’ve signed the deal. There’s got to be some compensation.
“Those players are filthy about the whole situation that someone’s coming across to rugby earning that massive amount of money and Jordan Petaia‘s management is in talks with rugby league clubs.”
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