Why Angus Crichton's scrapped Rugby Australia switch favours the NRL

OPINION

Dear Angus.

We don’t know each other apart from the occasional press conference catch-up, but I've watched and reported on your career since you came into the NRL in 2016. I actually remember thinking straight up 'that bloke's an Origin player' and hopefully wrote something along those lines at the time, although it was that long ago it’s no doubt lost on the internet ghost ship of stories.

Now, it's really none of my business what you do with your career – and I get footballers only have a finite time in the game - but I think I speak for league fans everywhere when I say you dodged a .308 caliber bullet in not signing with Rugby Australia.

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It wasn't worth the switch, no matter how many dollars they threw at you ($1.6m for two years was the word on the street).

Moving from the Sydney Roosters to join the Western Force, where you would have been stationed, would be like swapping Tetsuya's eight course degustation menu for Domino's crispy chips with pizza salt. The Wallabies' form at the World Cup is so pitiful there were genuine concerns Portugal, whose people would not know a maul from a Mateus, might knock us over last Monday.

Head coach Eddie Jones has completely lost the plot and lost the trust of fans, allegedly flirting with Japan while Wallabies' backs were turned. And chairman Hamish McLennan is so on the nose he feared an angry Australian fan might punch it or glass him during a recent exchange in a French restaurant.

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Angus, as mentioned above, when you weren't busy getting thrashed at international level, you would have been playing in a competition no one cares about. There's nothing super about Super Rugby.

Compare that to the week in, week out intensity of the NRL where fans live and breathe the result and just about every game is a genuine 50-50 contest. Look at that insane NRL grand final as further proof of the crazy levels rugby league is at as a code and as entertainment value.

If that was not enough to convince you, surely your manager's dealings with Rugby Australia were another red flag.

"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," he told The Sydney Morning Herald.

"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." Angus, one last thing before we go. You might want to pass this letter on to Joseph when you catch up at pre-season training.

Regards - Adam

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