Is Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii the worst signing in Australian sports history? It could cost them a World Cup backline
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii was trumpeted as a Wallabies saviour. Instead – with disgruntled stars heading for the exits – it may well be the contract to end rugby, writes JAMIE PANDARAM.
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It’s no fault of Suaalii’s, but the flow-on for Australian rugby could sound the death knell for the game, with the potential loss of a World Cup backline.
Australia hosts the 2027 World Cup and for the game to have any chance of surviving its perilous financial predicament, the Wallabies must go deep.
Before then, however, they could see superstars Max Jorgensen and Jordan Petaia leave.
Mark Nawaqanitawase has already signed with NRL’s Sydney Roosters and there’s no guarantee he’ll come back to union, while Izaia Perese is off to English rugby after this season.
Jorgensen, 19, and Petaia, 23, are players you’d build a World Cup backline around.
Perhaps new Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has other ideas, but Australian rugby isn’t exactly flush with world-beating talent.
The Wallabies are now ranked 10th in the world rankings – below Italy.
Jorgensen, like Nawaqanitawase, is an athlete the Wallabies can’t afford to lose.
He has the ability to become one of the best attacking players in the planet. Which is exactly why the Roosters are looking to sign him from 2026 onwards.
Wallabies five-eighth Noah Lolesio and centre Len Ikitau are also off contract and assessing options abroad.
And it largely boils down to two factors; RA is in serious debt, and Suaalii is coming into the game in 2025 on a three-year contract worth $5.35 million, with his first year salary locked at $1.6 million.
RA has taken out an $80 million loan, and is desperately hoping revenue from next year’s British & Irish Lions tour, and the hosting of the World Cup, will surpass the debt and put them back in the black.
But as the decades have shown, lack of success in the Test and Super Rugby arenas have fractured the supporter base and left RA struggling for reliable revenue streams.
It led them to tell star players there was no more money for upgraded contracts at the start of last year. Some signed for less than their going rate, and then watched as RA’s then chairman Hamish McLennan orchestrated the record deal for Suaalii.
It’s little wonder many players are seething and don’t trust their employer.
It’s not squarely on McLennan either. He made a play he believed would put rugby on the map after years of floundering, and had to get the full backing of the board.
They gave him the support.
But more than a few within the RA building and outside of it are wondering if they can somehow get out of the deal with Suaalii. Even the Roosters are revising their figures in case there is a backflip.
But RA chief Phil Waugh has said they’ll honour his deal, and that is the scenario to work off for the other contracted players right now.
Waugh is another major headache; the future of the Melbourne Rebels.
The club owes $20 million to the Tax Office and other lenders, and RA can’t bail them out given their own gigantic loan.
So RA doesn’t know whether they’ll have four or five Super teams next year, and therefore doesn’t know what the salary cap will be, and therefore can’t hold contract talks.
In the meantime, rivals are trying to pounce.
Petaia is being eyed by St George Illawarra Dragons, overseas rugby, and NFL talent scouts.
He has had a mixed run with the Wallabies, given extensive injury disruptions, but showed during last year’s World Cup that he is a key asset to the backline and can cover numerous positions.
He is yet to enter his prime years, but is set to be lost to Australian rugby before they see the fruits of their investment.
In all this, the figure who deserves sympathy is Suaalii.
There’ll be the usual jokes about how he can cry into his hundred dollar bills, but Suaalii will face the brunt of Australian rugby fans’ frustrations on multiple front.
If the Lions series is lost, it’s because they’d already lost Nawaqanitawase and Perese because of the Suaalii deal.
And if they get bundled out in the World Cup again, it’ll have been because three or four other top players left before the tournament because RA couldn’t afford to keep them.
Every knock on will have supporters shaking their heads. Every wrong decision under pressure, by a young man whose never played a minute of professional rugby, will be jeered as a “told you so” by those who knew he “wasn’t worth it”.
All the while, the Roosters and NRL faithful will point their fingers and laugh.
Suaalii didn’t place the value on himself. The rugby market did.
But the consequences mean it will affect the value of the Wallabies jersey – with some of their best defecting – and the value of Australian rugby itself.
If there is no surplus at the end of the 2027 World Cup, rugby as a major professional sport in Australia will be facing the end.
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