Kangaroos and Blues star Jack Wighton’s shock decision to quit representative football has been explained as a move to make him more valuable to the Dolphins.
The Raiders five-eighth stunned his club last month by announcing he was turning down his player option for next year and heading to the open market.
Canberra responded with a four-year deal worth $4.4 million but that’s still sitting on the table with a host of clubs interested in his services.
Wighton then stunned the NRL world again this week by ending his rep career just two months after celebrating his 30th birthday.
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Wighton has played 10 games for New South Wales since debuting in 2019 but he was a controversial omission in game three last year.
The 30-year-old missed game two with Covid and was then left out of the decider, which the Blues lost.
Wighton was still picked in Mal Meninga’s Kangaroos squad and started in the centres the World Cup final.
Origin players earned $30,000 per game before Covid and the figure is expected to return to around that mark this year.
Wighton was no certainty to get picked this year, with Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic to start in the centres, but utility was set to compete for a bench spot in the series opener on May 31.
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The playmaker has been heavily linked with the Dolphins and coach Wayne Bennett has declared he’d be willing to pay more than $1 million for the gun No. 6.
“He’ll go to the Dolphins, I really think he will,” Phil Rothfield said on NRL 360.
“He’s a more valuable player not playing State of Origin, there’s that six-week period in the middle of the season where he’ll be available for the Dolphins and not getting bashed up in the heaviest body contact in world sport – Origin.
“He was a little bit peeved (about missing selection in the 2022 decider) and I think it’s one of the reasons he was weighing it up.”
Brent Read revealed Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga had known for some time Wighton was considering it, while Braith Anasta believes there is “something else to it”.
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“To me, there is something else to this. He’s not staying in Canberra on big money… and now he’s stepping down from State of Origin duties and he’s renowned for being an Origin player and loving it – so what is going on?” Anasta said.
“I think everyone suspects that Jack is going through some sort of life change. The grapevine is he’s leaving Canberra and the Dolphins is the club that everyone is talking about,” Read responded.
But Paul Kent argued it could simply be a football decision and a result of the emotional rollercoaster his 2022 Origin campaign proved.
“He was man of the match in the first game last year, missed the second game through Covid then got overlooked for the third for Siosifa Talakai who to be fair was not a success,” Kent said.
“Sometimes the emotional disappointment of it.. You think I’ll come back in and then you get crushed because you don’t get picked for strange reasons and in the end some blokes just go I just don’t need this in my footy at this stage in my career.”
