Mitchell Pearce will have plenty of NRL suitors, but he must avoid one

Mitchell Pearce has been urged to remember a ‘savage business call’ ahead of his expected return to the NRL following a stint overseas.

Mitchell Pearce of the Knights runs the ball during the round 22 NRL match between the Cronulla Sharks and the Newcastle Knights at Moreton Daily Stadium, on August 15, 2021, in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

COMMENT

There’s one particular team Mitchell Pearce should dodge if he wants a dignified return to the NRL, and it isn’t the Tigers, and it’s not even the Blues.

Nope, it’s a sorrowful place even more underwhelming than these longstanding battlers.

Put plainly, if Pearce wants to finish on an honourable note in Australia, he should do whatever it takes to avoid burying the hatchet with the Sydney Roosters.

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The 34 year-old has declared his intentions for an NRL swan song, recently using an interview to delicately canvass a homecoming at the completion of his deal with Le Catalans.

And despite the former 34-year-old’s age and chequered off-field record, the grapevine indicates strong interest from a number of playmaker-starved clubs willing to pay $29 for an airport sandwich.

Pearce has already filled the first step of the process by rejecting the Tigers, thus leaving one club sticking out at the top of discussions like a predictable sore thumb.

Of course this is the Roosters, with the Bondi powerhouse rumoured to be interested in luring home their one-time prodigal son to bolster their stocks of expensive pocket lint.

Mitchell Pearce had a great Roosters career, until he was replaced.

No doubt Pearce would be tempted by the offer of a triumphant homecoming, especially the change in scenery from the loose livestock in Perpignan to the loose livestock of the Eastern Suburbs.

But if the halfback is like most other millennials his age – sensible, retentive and staunchly vindictive – he’ll give his old club a wide berth.

Put simply, despite being a favourite son with a premiership ring and numerous bruises as fall-guy, the Roosters didn’t blink in slashing him loose the nanosecond they found a shinier option with more rings and less CCTV footage.

This decision by the Tri-Colours to dump Pearce in favour of Cooper Cronk was a savage business call that left a stalwart in the cold, even despite being a free agent meant he was immediately linked with the club the moment he left.

Cooper Cronk had immediate success at the Roosters. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

Nevertheless, Pearce departed with great class, with the footy community lauding the manner in which he walked away with his head held high and not by waking up in a cubicle at the Coogee Bay Hotel.

As for the Roosters, besides the two premierships, it was ultimately a regrettable decision. It was callous and inhumane, and that’s just the part where Pearce ended up in Newcastle.

That’s why Pearce can only move on from this rough-as-guts Rooster repudiation by holding a grudge against the club at all costs. He should avoid the joint purely on principle, plus because they’re playing like a busted a*se.

Why would you leave the idyllic south of France to be ring-fenced under the same game plan that has exiled Sam Walker in reggies? Or just cop the brunt for a decaffeinated attack producing less buzz than the also-rans?

Pearce wants a swan song finish. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

Pearce should do himself a favour.

Link with the Raiders or the Dolphins or anywhere else and run a dignified 10th, not a mystifying 9th.

Or at the very least, exhibit another grand display of nobility by using the Rooster name in vain to trigger a bidding war.

– Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.