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How the Melbourne Rebels plan to keep hold of Matt Toomua despite interest overseas
By AAP
While big money overseas beckons, the Rebels are hopeful off-contract Wallabies playmaker Matt Toomua feels that his future lies in Melbourne.
And they are also looking to convince Toomua not to take up a sabbatical next year, following test captain Michael Hooper overseas.
Toomua and Rebels captain Dane Haylett-Petty are the only other Wallabies players able to top up their contracts, which were hit hard by COVID-19 pay cuts, with a short-term stint in Japan or Europe.
The Super Rugby side and Rugby Australia see Toomua as a priority re-signing - apart from being a major on-field talent he's one of the few Rebels with a profile in the AFL-mad city.
"Matt is very much the top of the tree in regards to priorities," Melbourne boss Baden Stephenson told AAP.
"He's playing good footy, has been our captain with Dane out, our goal-kicker, and someone that we really want to retain for 2022 and 2023.
"Clearly he wants to play in the World Cup so we're working away to try to make sure it's attractive for him to stay."
Melbourne admit that they need to offer more than money, unable to compete with the massive contracts off-shore, and hope to tap into 31-year-old Toomua's business interests and aspirations beyond rugby.
"Matt is slightly different as I know he's done a lot of study and he's aspirational to work in sport post his career," Stephenson said.
"He knows the networks and the people that can help him here in Melbourne.
"Clearly there's pressure from international markets but Matt and his manager do put value on the non-financial support and opportunities so it's certainly not a finance-only situation."
Toomua told AAP he was still working through his future but his preference was to stay in Australia and be a part of the Wallabies' 2023 World Cup campaign.
"A sabbatical is still an option but I've got to figure out a few more things before I start thinking about that," said Toomua, who has 54 test caps.
"My preference is to stay at home - it's a lot more complicated nowadays with the international market and with COVID and at my age I'm probably closer to the end than the start so I've got to start thinking about life beyond rugby and what that looks like.
"I sincerely hope we can find a solution that allows me to stay."
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That's really stupidly pedantic. Let's say the gods had smiled on us, and we were playing Ireland in Belfast on this trip. Then you'd be happy to accept it as a tour of the UK. But they're not going to Australia, or Peru, or the Philippines, they're going to the UK. If they had a match in Paris it would be fair to call it the "end-of-year European tour". I think your issue has less to do with the definition of the United Kingdom, and is more about what is meant by the word "tour". By your definition of the word, a road trip starting in Marseilles, tootling through the Massif Central and cruising down to pop in at La Rochelle, then heading north to Cherbourg, moving along the coast to imagine what it was like on the beach at Dunkirk, cutting east to Strasbourg and ending in Lyon cannot be called a "tour of France" because there's no visit to St. Tropez, or the Louvre, or Martinique in the Caribbean.
Go to commentsJust thought for a moment you might have gathered some commonsense from a southerner or a NZer and shut up. But no, idiots aren't smart enough to realise they are idiots.
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