‘Joey is all anyone is talking about’: Inside the deal that delivered rugby its new face

When Rugby Australia was trying to woo Eddie Jones back to the Wallabies, former chairman Hamish McLennan hosted a dinner for the veteran coach at his $17 million home in Lavender Bay.

Over a meal of Portuguese chicken prepared by his wife, Lucinda, McLennan sold his vision for the future of the Wallabies – and the RA boss got his man.

Some seven months later, while Jones was still enjoying the honeymoon period of his second coming at the Wallabies, McLennan doubled down on what he believed was a winning recipe.

McLennan was deep into covert discussions with Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii’s agent, Isaac Moses, to lure his client from the NRL back to rugby union, but the teenage superstar’s family were reluctant to go any further without understanding the values of the people they were about to do business with.

Suaalii’s parents wanted to make sure he was going to be looked after – beyond the pay cheque. So the ambitious McLennan invited the then 19-year-old prodigy and his father Chris and mother Salina over for some of Lucinda’s Portuguese chicken together with the agent who would later strike one of the most significant deals in Australian sporting history.

Jones was there, too, of course – sitting next to Suaalii at the table as he listened to the teenager talk with a mix of confidence and humility about making the transition back to rugby.

McLennan’s daughter, Olivia, and her boyfriend Alex were also at the table. According to McLennan, so, too, was then RA director Phil Waugh, who went on to become the game’s CEO.

Waugh denied any knowledge of the dinner when asked about it inside his Moore Park office last Thursday. “I’m surprised to hear Philip is denying he was at the dinner,” McLennan said. “He had a great time.”

Waugh’s reluctance to admit he was at the dinner that helped seal Suaalii’s signature highlights the tension that has bubbled away in the background since news of the cross-code star’s multi-million-dollar defection broke some 20 months ago.

Who knew what? Who supported the decision? And why have so many privately distanced themselves from it?

The negotiations and the boardroom squabble

There was already tension brewing between McLennan and his then CEO, Andy Marinos. That tension extended to the rugby committee – a newly formed subcommittee comprised of Waugh and fellow board member Daniel Herbert – that was meant to be a sounding board for all things high performance.

McLennan, a want-it-done-yesterday kind of guy, was growing tired of the bureaucracy and what he believed was the slow-paced nature of RA. He wasn’t afraid to let his feelings be known, especially after RA’s failure to lure former Wallabies centre Samu Kerevi back from Japan.

“Has anyone reached out to Joseph Suaalii?” the chairman asked his CEO mid-way through 2021 just a few weeks after the young Sydney Rooster was granted a special NRL exemption to make his first-grade debut before his 18th birthday.

“Blind Freddie would tell you he was a superstar,” McLennan told the Herald over a coffee in Double Bay last week.

“The Wallabies had a 36 per cent win rate and I was annoyed that no-one had bothered to pick the phone up, so I did it myself. Management seemed to be accepting of the poor Wallaby performance.”

In typical fashion, McLennan called Suaalii direct, leaving a voicemail asking him to call back. The Glenmore Park Brumbies junior did just that, emphasising his desire to represent the Wallabies. “Speak to my manager”, he told the RA chairman.

Over the next eight months McLennan, Moses and Waugh held several clandestine meetings at which they hatched a plan to steal Suaalii away from rugby league and the Roosters’ billionaire chairman Nick Politis.

McLennan, aware that 86 per cent of the sport’s revenue was generated by the Wallabies, was convinced the game was in dire need of a shot in the arm. He believed the talents – and profile – of Suaalii would provide just that.

“Anyone who doubts that Joseph will be an icon of rugby is probably lacking a bit of vision,” McLennan said.

Rugby Australia, however, was in the midst – and still is – of a financial crisis dating back several years. At the time. the code was searching for $250 million in outside capital from private equity firms.

RA later opted for an $80 million line of credit over a five-year period, a large chunk of which it plans to pay off through an anticipated $100 million windfall from next year’s British and Irish Lions Tour.

The advice to McLennan from management at RA was that a big-money offer for Suaalii – a three-year deal with a two-year option in the players’ favour worth up to $9 million – was reckless and irresponsible given the financial state of rugby in Australia.

“It’s what everyone talks about and I understand why people do,” Waugh said of Suaalii’s record deal.

“We don’t have the same revenue line as what the AFL and NRL do. We don’t have the same broadcast numbers. We don’t have the same balance sheet as the other codes do. I don’t really want to get into the contract and the number itself, but clearly that needed to be met to get to the outcome.”

Sources with knowledge of the situation talking on the condition of anonymity to protect confidentiality said that Marinos strongly opposed both the contract and McLennan’s approach to negotiations.

The CEO wasn’t invited to the dinner at McLennan’s house. Nor was he even notified it was even happening.

Marinos, who had also had his reservations over the pursuit of Jones, was at loggerheads with McLennan over his push to raid rugby league to bolster RA’s playing stocks.

He was concerned about the blowback and the potential inflation of the player market as a result of the Suaalii deal. It contributed heavily to his decision to walk away from the top job soon after the deal was struck.

Jones, however, had a fascination with rugby league players. He always has. In his conversations with McLennan before taking on the job, he spoke fondly of what he believed was the last golden era of Australian rugby and the impact cross-code converts Wendell Sailor, Mat Rogers and Lote Tuqiri had had on the sport.

Jones’ biggest gripe was that all the best young kids were choosing rugby league as their preferred career path, and he believed the best way to change that was to bring some star power to the top end of the roster for them to aspire to.

The pair agreed that raiding rugby league was in the best interest of rugby, and came up with a hit list of NRL players they wanted to lure across the divide. Suaalii was the No.1 target.

Jones also tried to use his relationship with former Wallabies player Simon Poidevin – who has a strong connection with Cameron Murray’s family – to entice the South Sydney skipper back to the sport he played as a schoolboy.

The list included then little-known Dolphins playmaker Isaiya Katoa – now regarded as one of the best young halfbacks in the NRL – and Canberra’s excitement machine Xavier Savage.

Dan Herbert, who was an RA director at the time before he replaced McLennan as chairman in the aftermath of a horror 2023 World Cup campaign, is said to have voiced his concerns about the deal.

“Why did they approve the deal, then?” McLennan asked.

“After I left, and in true fashion, some at Rugby Australia tried to quietly distance themselves from the decision. Now I hear they’re all for it. Success has many fathers.”

McLennan scoffed at suggestions that he acted without transparency, or that he acted inappropriately in fast-tracking Moses’ agent accreditation – which had lapsed after his client Israel Folau’s Wallabies departure.

“Pip Marlow [board member] and Phil Waugh worked closely with me on the deal,” McLennan said.

“The Rugby Australia board and a key sponsor were very much across the negotiation and signed off on it. Other top players have earned more than $1 million and we’d moved RA from approximately a $25 million loss in 2020 to an $8 million profit in 2023. We needed to invest to get the team prepared for the Lions.

“Joey is all anyone is talking about and he’s the gift that keeps on giving. Over the last two decades, the decline in Wallaby performance has done more to hurt the value of rugby and all of its commercial assets.”

Will the deal send Rugby Australia broke?

It’s been widely speculated that McLennan was able to secure verbal assurances from private benefactors linked to the Australian Rugby Foundation (ARF), an arm of RA established in 2014 to attract greater private investment.

McLennan’s pitch to the board was that Suaalii’s costs should be roughly divided by three and financed by the Wallabies, NSW Waratahs and the ARF.

It was based on a verbal commitment from a wealthy benefactor – a close contact of McLennan – who was willing to put in close to $500,000 a year to help fund Suaalii’s salary.

Any financial assistance McLennan was banking on disappeared when he was removed as chairman. The funds have not materialised nor been sourced by the current RA administration, leaving head office (which now also owns the Waratahs) to cover Suaalii’s multi-million-dollar deal from its own coffers.

Waugh insists RA has the means to finance Suaalii’s lucrative deal without jeopardising the future of the sport, even though RA recently engaged in brief conversations with the Roosters about a potential loan deal in 2026 to ease the financial burden of his contract.

“My view on where we are financially is that we have a revenue challenge more than a cost challenge,” Waugh said.

“What we need to do is drive interest, and drive an audience and drive the revenue line by attracting commercial partners and connectivity to the public. Between now, the Lions and the World Cup we need to maximise our revenue. Athletes such as Joseph allow us to maximise our revenue.

“We’re disciplined in here around our finances. We’ll fund [Suaalii’s contract] through whatever means we need to, to meet our financial obligations in our contracting model.”

When RA announced it had won the signature of Suaalii, it was only spruiked as a three-year deal. But last month this masthead reported that the contract also included a secret clause – worth between $3.5 million and $4 million – that could extend Suaalii’s time in rugby union until the end of 2029.

The deal struck by McLennan and Waugh – and signed off by the board – included a player option that gave him the right to trigger two further years on his contract at the value of at least the amount of the third season of his deal.

It could take the contract’s total value to almost $8.5 million over five years. The revelation of the player option – worth nearly $500,000 more per season than that of the highest-paid player in the NRL (Kalyn Ponga) ended the Roosters’ interest in pursuing a deal to bring Suaalii to rugby league.

The wrath of Nick Politis

It was Moses who called the Roosters about Suaalii at the height of a tug-of-war for the then schoolboy sensation between Rugby Australia and the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

At the time, Moses had been deregistered by the NRL for almost 12 months after an investigation found he had breached his obligations as an agent when he assisted former client Tim Mannah to give evidence that was false and intended to mislead an NRL integrity unit investigation into the Parramatta Eels in 2017.

For any deal taking Suaalii to the Roosters to be registered, at least with Moses’ name attached to the documents, the agent’s accreditation would have to be reinstated.

The 82-year-old Politis has since told those close to him that, in hindsight, he believes Moses used the Roosters as a means of getting his suspension lifted.

Politis has the ear of Peter V’landys, and vouched for Moses’ character to the ARL Commission chairman.

It ultimately contributed significantly to his paperwork receiving a stamp of approval and the Roosters securing Suaalii for four years on a salary that finished up at around $800,000 a season.

So when Politis read, four years later, about Suaalii’s defection to rugby union in the press, without having been given a chance to keep his star player, he picked up the phone and launched into Moses.

Politis vowed never to speak to him again. Several of Moses’ clients, including Matt Lodge, have since left the Roosters.

To this day, Politis remains true to his word despite dozens of attempts from Moses – both directly and through third parties – to try and build bridges with the Roosters chairman.

Sources with knowledge of the matter talking on the condition of anonymity said Politis has told Suaalii that if he was to ever return to the Roosters, it would need to be without Moses’ involvement in negotiations.

The secret Parramatta deal

For all the hype around Suaalii, he entered the final year of his tenure at the Roosters an outside chance of starting the season on the bench or in reserve grade.

The Roosters bought Dominic Young from Newcastle to partner Daniel Tupou on the wing, and there was momentum gathering internally for Billy Smith to start the year in the centres alongside Joey Manu due to concerns over Suaalii’s reading of the game in that position.

Sources with knowledge of the situation talking on the condition of anonymity told the Herald that Moses held several secret discussions with Parramatta about Suaalii switching to the Eels immediately.

It’s unclear whether Suaalii was aware of his agent’s conversations with the Eels, or the prospect of earning up to $1 million to replace Parramatta skipper Clint Gutherson at fullback for one season before defecting to rugby.

Multiple sources confirmed that Moses, whose cousin Mitchell is the halfback at Parramatta, had told the Eels that he would attempt to seek a release for Suaalii from the Roosters. One of Suaalii’s closest friends and schoolmate, Will Penisini, also plays for Parramatta.

The agent made several attempts to meet with Politis, including in Las Vegas for the NRL season-opening double header at Allegiant Stadium, but the Roosters boss did not respond to his messages and calls. The Roosters were unaware, until told by this masthead last week, of the bombshell request Moses intended to drop.

Injuries to Young and Smith over the pre-season, however, meant Suaalii started the year in Las Vegas in the Roosters’ starting team.

Over the next month it became increasingly unlikely the Roosters would be open to a release, especially given their status as premiership heavyweights and Parramatta’s slide down the ladder that ultimately cost coach Brad Arthur his job.

The future is bright

When the Sydney Roosters applied for an exemption to play Suaalii before his 18th birthday, the NRL set out at a list of conditions he had to meet to convince them he was ready for first grade.

A range of physiological tests undertaken by an external company confirmed what was widely assumed – that, physically, his athletic prowess was undeniable. He was a generational athlete, the NRL was told.

But it was a range of wellbeing and psychological assessments that convinced rugby league powerbrokers Suaalii was ready to handle the rigours of playing in the top grade and the pressure of the hype his potential debut had generated.

In the feedback provided to the NRL from external mental health professionals was that Suaalii’s maturity was on a level far greater than a large portion of the 480 players in the competition.

“One of the great attractions to Joseph was that he was incredibly humble,” Waugh said.

“He wants to perform and understands there’s a real responsibility and requirement to perform. That’s not from Rugby Australia, that’s also his own expectations as well. Culturally, he’s seamlessly fitted into the squad, which is quite unique given the fanfare and speculation around dollars.”

In the month since the Roosters agreed to release Suaalii from the final few weeks of his NRL contract to join the Wallabies in camp ahead of the Spring tour, the 21-year-old has dominated the headlines.

Victory in the fight for Suaalii’s services has come at a cost for rugby. Mark Nawaqanitawase (Roosters) and Carter Gordon (Titans), as well as numerous young talents, have chosen league over union in the past 12 months given concerns over RA’s pathways and its spending capacity.

Regardless, rugby is back on back pages and television bulletins once again, giving the code the most positive publicity it has received since it sealed the deal for Jones to return as coach just over two years ago.

“Yeah, but we’re careful not to get too carried away with it,” Waugh said.

“You don’t want a sugar hit then our performances drift away and we end up back where we were when you were trying to find rugby in the papers. What’s important to us is to get to a sustainable system so that we can be consistently on the back pages and performing at a level where people want to watch it and people want to read about it and know what’s going on. I think it’s been a pleasing start.

“Anyone can put a Wallabies jersey on, but there’s a responsibility to perform and win.”

Rugby Australia CEO, Phil Waugh

“The real value will be Wallabies winning Test matches and Waratahs winning Super Rugby titles. As a result of that filling stadiums and driving a lot of eyeballs on TV. Performance is king. Anyone can put a Wallabies jersey on, but there’s a responsibility to perform and win.”

Throughout Jones’ brief and tumultuous second tenure as Australian coach, he mostly left Suaalii alone. It was a promise he made to Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson at the time of signing him – that he wouldn’t be a distraction.

But on his way out the door, Jones sent Suaalii a text message.

“I’m sorry for leaving,” Jones said to him.

“It was never my intent. I would have loved to have coached you but I know you’ll be a success.”

If Jones is right, the story of the night a Portuguese chicken beat a Sydney Rooster will go down as one of Australian sport’s most significant moments.

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