Filipo Daugunu turns down Japanese millions to stay with Reds

Filipo Daugunu has knocked back a deal worth nearly $2m with a Japanese Top League club to remain with the Queensland Reds.

Queensland winger Filipo Daugunu has turned down a big offer to leave the Reds and play in Japan. Picture: Brendan Hertel/QRU

Queensland winger Filipo Daugunu has knocked back a deal worth nearly $2m over three years with a Japanese Top League club to remain with the Reds as he closes in on his first Wallabies jersey.

His decision is in marked contrast to the one taken by three of his Reds teammates — Izack Rodda, Harry Hockings and Isaac Lucas — last month to head overseas rather than accept the average 60 per cent wage cut negotiated by Rugby Australia with the Rugby Union Players Association to the end of September.

Rodda was already a first-choice Wallaby, while Hockings and Lucas appear to have sacrificed — at least for the moment — any thoughts they might have had of playing for Australia.

Sources suggest Rodda this week signed with French Top 14 side Lyon on a one-year deal for reportedly less money — about $20,000 a month — than he was receiving in Australia as the best-paid player at the Reds. Not only will the deal preclude him from returning in time to play in Australia next year but seemingly it makes little sense, as he was one of a half-dozen players granted an overseas sabbatical by RA as a way of recouping any losses resulting from the wage cut.

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Daugunu signed a deal with the Reds in December to extend his contract by four years, taking him through to the next World Cup in France in 2023. But that deal, like every other player contract in Australian rugby, is vulnerable to a legal challenge if the circumstances change post-COVID-19. Still, it is a heartening vote of confidence in Australian rugby that Daugunu, a former Fiji youth soccer goalkeeper, chose to stay with the Reds.

With the Reds allowing winger Henry Speight to go to ­Biarritz on a three-year deal, Daugunu, 24, certainly now figures in the top rung of contenders for the Wallabies wing positions.

John Eales medallist Marika Koroibete looms as a certainty, with fellow Melbourne outside backs Reece Hodge and Dane Haylett-Petty both strongly in consideration. Impending cross-code buy Suliasi Vunivalu, currently with Melbourne Storm but soon to switch to the Reds once his NRL commitments have reached an end, is also in the frame, judging by the fact he was telephoned on the weekend by Wallabies coach Dave Rennie.

Meanwhile, hopes of a Zoom conference between New Zealand and Australian Super Rugby chief executives on Friday have been dashed, seemingly after news of the planned hook-up was made public in Australia. Whether New Zealand Rugby intervened is yet to be ascertained, but indications are that any discussions of a trans-Tasman competition next season will take place at the national body level.

While the NZ officials might feel miffed that their Australian colleagues might not all have stayed silent about their approach, there is no disguising the fact there is an appetite on both sides of the ditch for such a trans-Tasman series.

Although New Zealand has seemingly ruled out any thought of pushing for a sixth Super Rugby franchise, it may well be that if Australia is queried by the Kiwis about its ability to have the depth to sustain five teams next year, it can suggest that NZ send any of its surplus Super Rugby players to Australia to supplement the Australian sides.

As the Western Force demonstrated by recruiting Wallabies Greg Holmes and Kyle Godwin, and quality journeymen Jono Lance and Ollie Atkins, four quality additions to a squad can turn a solid outfit into a highly competitive one. The same logic would surely apply if NZ eased its selection laws by announcing that any Kiwis who joined an Australian franchise would still be eligible for All Black selection.

Steve Tew always opposed such a relaxation but he is no longer running New Zealand Rugby, and in this post-COVID world, where seemingly anything is possible, it hardly seems to be stretching the boundaries to select All Blacks from the same competition where they are already chosen from.

With RA having set down July 3 as the start date for Super Rugby AU, focus now has shifted from when the rebooted competition will get under way to how many people will be able to watch it live. The Queensland government is putting a cap on crowds of 2000 for NRL and AFL matches in Brisbane on the weekend. But if there is no surge in coronavirus cases, there may well be a further expansion by June 27-28. And then, by July 3, the Reds could possibly have a crowd of up to 10,000 for their opening clash with the Waratahs.