A growing trend has emerged in Super League of late whereby top English players are taking their talents down under to the NRL, and a recent off-field deal could lead to more of the sport’s stars getting that opportunity.
Show Me The Money are one of the leading player agencies in the British rugby league and they’ve now linked up in partnership with an Australian agency, Searoo Sports Management, in a deal that’s set to result in more movement between the two elite competitions.
The steady flow of English talent to the NRL isn’t necessarily new but the Australian competition is set to expand by two teams in the next two seasons with the addition of Perth Bears and the PNG Chiefs, meaning the player pool is understandably stretched.
England has become an obvious pool for NRL clubs to fish in with the incoming Perth Bears having signed five players from Super League and a further two from London Broncos.
Interestingly, three of the Bears’ recruits are English with the most recent of them, Mikolaj Oledzki, seeing his NRL deal facilitated as a result of the link-up between SMTM and Searoo Sports Management.
“That’s part of the partnership, we’ve done Mik Oledzki already,” Show Me The Money’s Joe Harrison confirmed when speaking to Serious About Rugby League.
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What major agency partnership means for Super League talents
Explaining the decision to partner with an Australian company, Harrison said: “We’ve looked at ourselves as a company and whether Australia is a potential avenue that players want to explore, as we have lost four to five top players from Super League.
“Super League is where our loyalty has always lay but we’ve got to make sure as a company that we do the best for our clients and can’t keep letting Australian agents come into our game and take our players.”
Harrison added: “I think we’ve looked over the last two or three years to possibly do something and then someone put us in contact with Braith (Anasta) and Justin (Caines). We had quite a few Zooms, quite a few meetings and it went from there.”
Harrison revealed that SMTM had spoken with a number of agencies before eventually securing the partnership with Searoo, whose figurehead Anasta is also the agent of Hull KR coach Willie Peters.
It’s a partnership that has already proven fruitful with Mikolaj Oledzki a confirmed deal whilst it’s been reported by Cronulla Sharks that they have signed Owen Trout, another player listed on the Searoo client list as co-managed by SMTM.
“We met with a couple of agencies and they’re the ones who we just felt the best relationship with where our views on the sport aligned,” Harrison said of the link-up with Searoo.
He added: “Where the partnership is interesting is that we will facilitate their signings.”
With Super League clubs now able to roster up to 10 overseas players, that’s particularly interesting as talent could be coming from the NRL to Super League.
