Rugby Australia’s real offer to Rooster Angus Crichton revealed

Rugby Australia’s contract offer to Roosters star Angus Crichton can be revealed to be worth less than half the ‘fake $1.6m’ deal originally reported.

Sydney Roosters’ Angus Crichton was a target for Rugby Australia. Picture: Getty Images

Rugby Australia’s contract offer to Roosters star Angus Crichton can be revealed to be worth less than half the “fake $1.6m” deal originally reported.

Crichton’s manager Dave Rawlings publicly slammed rugby’s governing body for “bad business” but The Australian can reveal the details of the “conservative offer” to the NRL player, which included a base salary of less than $400,000 per season as well as third-party deal plus bonuses for Wallabies appearances.

The “fake $1.6m” offer reported in The Sydney Morning Herald caused tension in rugby ranks and was a focus of a member union meeting on Tuesday, with several states and territory bosses concerned by the supposed mammoth two-season offer to the NRL star.

During the meeting the bloated Crichton offer was shot down by rugby management including chief executive Phil Waugh who told chiefs the contract was “under half” of what had been made public. The document seen by The Australian reveals rugby’s far lower offer to the former Kangaroos player.

“Why would RA leak a higher number than what they have ­offered?” a Rugby Australia source said.

“It’s absolutely illogical to leak a much higher number than what is offered and it caused consternation. The agent has been caught trying to push the price up.

“I don’t think he’s represented his client particularly well.”

The original $1.6m report linking Crichton to the Western Force has been criticised as having a damaging impact on the rugby community.

“It feels like a slap in the face to the entire rugby community and this sort of reckless spending,” wrote former Wallabies player Ben Alexander in a column.

After rugby retracted the offer, Rawlings attacked Rugby Australia, its chairman Hamish McLennan and Waugh, claiming they were poor administrators and communicators. “It’s not much of a surprise to us that negotiations have fallen over given the manner in which they’ve been handled since we began ­discussions,” Rawlings was quoted as saying. “On at least three different occasions, I’ve questioned whether their intent to sign Angus was genuine because we had concerns around the disconnect between the communication we were receiving from the chairman, chief executive and head of contracting. They were all on different pages.

“We had contracting deadlines missed on multiple occasions, which is just bad business. This wasn’t a money grab. He was keen to go. He thought he could help. I feel for the Western Force. They would have got themselves a potential world-class No.12. The pathway that they laid out for Angus was very appealing.”

Waugh said Rugby Australia had walked away from the deal because of the way Rawlings had conducted himself.

“RA was approached numerous times by Angus Crichton’s management, trying to pressure RA,” Waugh said in a statement. “Due to the manner in which the discussions progressed and the significant inaccuracies in the numbers reported, we have ceased conversations.”

Crichton, who played schoolboy rugby and trained with the Waratahs prior to his successful NRL career, is contracted with the Roosters until the end of 2024 on a deal worth about $675,000 a season. Last week he travelled to France to watch matches at the rugby World Cup.

McLennan and Waugh remain focused on reforming and centralising the code’s high-performance system. It’s understood powerbrokers in Queensland, Western Australia, NSW and Victoria are keen to embrace a new high-performance system similar to the one overseen by Australia’s David Nucifora in Ireland. However the Brumbies hierarchy has not endorsed the model.

McLennan told The Australian time for change was now and it was key to improving Australia’s current standing in world rugby.