Agent reveals why James Roby, Lee Briers and Sean Long never made NRL switch despite interest

James Graham will always be remembered as a player who made an impression both in Super League and in the NRL.

In Super League he claimed the Man of Steel and played in six consecutive Grand Finals.

He won the treble in 2006 as well as the Challenge Cup in 2007 and 2008.

In 2012 he joined the Canterbury Bulldogs and helped them get to Grand Finals in 2012 and 2014.

He would eventually join the St George Illawarra Dragons before returning to Super League with St Helens where in his last game he won the 2020 Grand Final prior to retirement.

Graham is a fantastic example of how Super League stars can be a success in the NRL.

But when speaking to the man who pulled off his move to the NRL, agent David Riolo, on his podcast The Bye Round, Riolo revealed why other players who showed an interest in the NRL never made the move to Australia including James Roby, Lee Briers and Sean Long.

“I came out and I was speaking to Wilkin and he said ‘hey can you give me a bit of a hand.’ So I signed him as well not for his English stuff but his Australian stuff,” Riolo said of Jon Wilkin, Graham’s teammate at the time.

“James Roby and that were looking and I knew a few guys like Lee Briers and Sean Long who wanted to come to Australia but they didn’t really.

“But you [Graham] said ‘I want to go to the NRL, that’s my goal, I want to prove that I can mix it with the best in the NRL week in, week out.'”