The rare list of rugby union stars who tried a code switch to league

In the days when rugby union was amateur, code switches to rugby league were the norm but for the last 30 years it has been mostly one-way traffic in the other direction.
Here AAP examines some of the players to ditch the 15-man game for league after Wallabies winger Mark Nawaqanitawase sealed a two-year deal to join the NRL's Sydney Roosters.
GARRICK MORGAN
The last Wallaby to walk out on union for league, Morgan joined the South Queensland Crushers for the 1995 season but that lasted just two games. The forward soon returned to union with the Queensland Reds and won caps for the Wallabies either side of his stint in league.
JOHN KIRWAN
A member of the inaugural Warriors side in 1995, Kirwan had been a star of an all-conquering All Blacks side which won the 1987 Rugby World Cup. The winger had a steady if unspectacular time in the Warriors' first two seasons before finishing his career in Japanese rugby.
GARETH THOMAS
Thomas was a 100-cap veteran and an ornament of the Welsh rugby union team throughout the 2000s. He made his league bow aged 35 in the Super League in 2010 and went on to represent Wales in league as a centre too but by then his best days were well behind him.
LUTHER BURRELL
Grew up in the league hotbed of Huddersfield but made strides in union as a centre where he won 15 caps for England. Upset by missing out on the 2015 Rugby World Cup squad for Sam Burgess, Burrell had a brief and uneventful eight-game stint with Warrington in the Super League.
WILL WARBRICK
A former New Zealand Sevens player, Olympic silver medallist Warbrick made the move to the Melbourne Storm at the start of 2022. While initially beginning in the Queensland Cup, the winger had a breakout season in 2023 scoring 17 tries in 25 NRL games.
Latest Comments
that’s true, but that doesn’t constitute a “stop-start” career.
Under Eddie Jones Stuart was consistently 2nd choice. Under Borthwick Stuart is now 1st choice, but for a while was 3rd choice. That’s arguably more stop-start.
Go to commentsYou can take the boy out of Queensland but you can’t take the Queensland out of the boy 😀.
Thor is getting paid very nicely by the Tahs but to expect him to turn against Queensland was always fantasy. He’s just pretending to be a fake Tah.
Taniela is human and a deeply emotional one. Trying to turn him in to a traitor is just typical Tah arrogance and hubris. After all, a Tah would have no problem with it. Look at Michael Hooper and Kurtley Beale …..
Seru Uru is fantastic and is just growing and growing. Almost Fardy like which is probably the highest compliment you could pay him. Schmidt will ignore him because he represents a serious threat to the All Blacks.
If Schmidt doesn’t get some serious wins this year, Australian rugby and the Tahs would have wasted another couple of years and another couple of million Australian rugby dollars on another hopeless kiwi, when we could have been giving a real Australian coach some invaluable experience.
I don’t think Schmidt will be able to handle the pressure and will crumble and become completely irrational in his selections and tactics just like Deans and Rennie did.
Or he could be like every other kiwi who has failed in Australia and say, it wasn’t my fault !
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