Wallabies coach Eddie Jones cagey on reports of $1.6m bid to lure back NRL star Joseph Suaalii

Wallabies coach Eddie Jones has dodged questions about Joseph Suaalii amid reports Rugby Australia has lured the rugby league star to the 15-man code from 2025 on a $1.6 million contract.

An elite rugby talent in his junior years, Suaalii re-signed with the NRL’s Sydney Roosters through to 2024 earlier this month after starring for Samoa during last year’s Rugby League World Cup in England.

However, the 19-year-old has designs on playing fullback long-term and is currently being kept out of the position by James Tedesco, the World Cup-winning Australian captain and himself one of the brightest stars in the NRL.

The Roosters’ decision to re-sign Tedesco through to 2025 last week has put Suaalii’s fullback hopes further in doubt. News Corp has reported that Roosters insiders are now “resigned to losing the talented outside back”.

Suaalii was a schoolboys rugby star at The King’s School in Parramatta while a part of the Rabbitohs’ Harold Matthews Cup side, representing the GPS 1st XV, as well as the NSW Schoolboys and Australian under-18s Sevens rugby side. He met with former Wallabies coach Dave Rennie before opting to begin his professional career in league.

In doing so, he sensationally crossed the famous Anzac Road divide, defecting from South Sydney to sign with their arch-rivals the Sydney Roosters in November 2020, reportedly after the cashed-up NRL club offered ‘get out’ clauses in his contract that gave him the freedom to switch codes if he desired.

Those alleged clauses may now backfire on the Roosters, as the Wallabies reportedly table a deal for Suaalii that will see him join the Wallabies for the 2025 season and put him in the frame to play the British & Irish Lions on that year’s tour of Australia. An