AUSTRALIAN Rugby Union boss John O'Neill and Wallabies coach Robbie Deans have refuted reports that star playmaker Quade Cooper is considering a shock defection to rugby league next season.
The Daily Telegraph exclusively reported that Cooper had held secret negotiations with the Parramatta NRL club but both O'Neill and Deans say the 22-year-old is going nowhere.
O'Neill suspects the report is typical of a player agent trying to bump up his charge's price tag at a time the ARU is in negotiations with Australia's reigning Super 14 player of the year.
"We already had a meeting with his agent scheduled today," O'Neill said. "It may just be a coincidence that we wake up to a headline.
"Quade's a rising star ... a young man at the start of his career - why would you go to rugby league?
"He's got the world at his feet in our game, he's got a World Cup next year, he's a player we want to retain and we're confident in the coming week or so we'll have a satisfactory deal done.
"Negotiations are continuing. They have been underway for a little while now and we're confident Quade will be staying in rugby union."
Asked his thoughts on the reports, Deans said: "There is no dalliance with league".
"Quade's expressed to us that not only does he love what he does but he wants to continue doing it and personally I'm pretty confident that that will be the case," he said.
"This tends to happen. It's newsworthy, so to speak - maybe - but I'm confident in the long run [he'll stay]."
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Suity
He is a talented bloke though and would be a good buy. Way too early, but in time, could he be compared to the likes of other YAWNION migrants such as Ricky Stuart and Wally Lewis.
tony williams to manly, kevin kingston, penrith all got more money ...ossie come out of that bunch with morts who's rested this week.
so danial, where are we now, it seemed we had western reds super star fly half cooper.
now we have shit again, no one,,still looking.
guys where are we with a half to help morts in 2011.
this copper thing was all over the radio today.
come on ossie why let agents use you to pump up there prices,,its bullshit fella
we have let good players go to get a top half back, from where ever,but no one wants in parra,why?. this is upsetting players and fans.
If its a question of money, the ARU will throw millions at Quade. He is THE rising star of rugby.
If he goes to the NRL - compare him to a young Darren Lockyer. The boy can really play AND he can kick the ball !!!
Who cares anyway? it's not like any top line players want to come to the club, it's Fitzy all over again.
In saying that, do you spend say $400K (which is what I reckon League would need to offer to make him jump) on a guy with no NRL experience and who's last game of league was probably some U/16's game 6 or 7 years ago??? I think that's a massive risk to be honest. We can't keep throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at "potential". At some point we need results.
Managers are known to leak these things to the media to raise their values...
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