‘More NRL players ready to switch to rugby union’ says Eddie Jones

More of Australia’s leading rugby league players are keen to switch codes by coming over to rugby union, according to Wallabies head coach Eddie Jones.

In March, Rugby Australia reportedly tabled AUS$4.8 million to coax 19-year-old Joseph Suaalii to make the switch to rugby union in a three-year deal from 2024.

Suaalii is a talented player with impressive experience for someone of his age after representing the Sydney Roosters in the NRL and Samoa at the 2022 Rugby League World Cup.

More players want to follow Suaalii’s lead

And Jones revealed that more players from the 13-man code are keen to follow Suaalii to union.

“Yeah, we’ve got about three or four that are ready to sign mate, big names,” Jones said on The Breakdown.

“I can’t tell you now (which ones). But no, I think it adds to the competitive tension… we need to get rugby back competing as a winter sport. And by signing a guy like Suaalii, it helps that. If we sign two or three others, it’ll help that and it’ll also show kids.

“A lot of the kids now go to a big private school and by the time they’re 15, if they’re good, if they’re good readers of the game, they catch and pass – they’ve got a Rabbitohs contract or a Roosters contract in front of them.

“And the inevitability of that is hard to stop because we’re competing against 17 clubs that all have the recruitment budget of Rugby Australia.

“So we’ve got to get some of those players back, and ideally we keep more of them at a young age, which we have to do, but then to get a few of them back after they’ve done a apprenticeship in rugby league is fantastic.”

Just last week, Jones tapped into the expertise of rugby league legend Andrew Johns to work with the Wallabies playmakers ahead of their upcoming Rugby Championship opener against the Springboks in Pretoria on July 8.

Full of praise for Johns

“We’ve lost our way a little bit there and Andrew Johns – I’ve never seen a guy who understands that part of the game better than him,” he added.

“Just the little tricks he does with his eyes and his feet.

“We’ve got a young guy, Carter Gordon, who’s only played 15 Super Rugby games. So to have 35 minutes with the maestro, it’s going to be invaluable for his career.”

READ MORE: Eddie Jones ‘serious’ about his latest innovation in Wallabies set-up