London Broncos’ owners have confirmed that they expect to attract a ‘lot of interest’ from NRL players when discussing future recruitment plans this week.
The Broncos kickstarted their new era with a convincing win over Widnes Vikings, cementing many people’s belief that they will be able to run away with the Championship in 2026.
That’s not a major surprise given the quality of player that they have recruited with NRL stars Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Siliva Havili signing as their standout names, as well as a host of rising stars from down under.
Appearing on Sky Sports’ The Bench Podcast, part-owners Darren Lockyer and Grant Weschel have spoken about the club’s ability to attract big names with a number of the Australian Ashes-winning side talking about London Broncos, including Cam Munster.
“When the Kangaroos were here, a lot of the boys were up and about about coming to London,” Weschel revealed.
“Cam Munster actually said in the papers ‘can you give me Lockyer’s number, I’ll come to London’, which I think was somewhat of a throwaway line but they loved being in London.”
London Broncos owners expecting a ‘lot of interest’ from NRL players
Whilst that comment may have been a throwaway one from the Ashes player of the series, Munster did actually speak to the BBC on-air after one of the Kangaroos’ wins to confirm his genuine interest in a Super League switch.
When asked if he’d consider a move, Munster said: “If I got the opportunity to. I love the way the English go about their footy, I love the grind, I love running obviously into the big boys, I get flogged all the time, but I just love that contact and the competitiveness.”
Munster also added that rugby league was a ‘great spectacle’ in England as well as noting that the Broncos’ Super League snub was ‘unfortunate’, however, with many touting London for promotion next year, more NRL stars could be recruited.
That was something Weschel pointed to as he revealed that club captain and NRL signing Campbell-Gillard had been reporting back to Australia, something Weschel believed would help garner more interest.
Weschel revealed: “Even with Reagan Campbell-Gillard, he’s been reporting back to different players about how much he’s been enjoying so I think if we’re successful on the field and we go up and the people we’ve had come here speak highly about it, I think there’s going to be a lot of interest.”
Super League’s big challenge in signing NRL stars
Offering a realistic viewpoint that put a dampener on signing the top-end NRL stars such as Cam Munster, Darren Lockyer identified the vast difference in salary cap and wages from the NRL to Super League.
He explained: “I guess one of the challenges for the game over here is that we need to find ways to create more revenue because a player’s wages in Australia just continue to go up and up.
“In pounds, it would be around £700,000 or £750,000 (a year) and those numbers will keep going up so I think the question is how you bring more revenue into the game so you can pay your players more, but also give the clubs more money so they can reinvest into the grassroots.”
Currently, Super League clubs have a salary cap of £2.1 million, meaning a player on the wages that top NRL players receive would consume a huge percentage of that cap.
Both Weschel and Lockyer confirmed that the elite Super League wages are closer to £350,000 though the salary cap has not shown signs of increasing, despite being set at the £2.1 million mark six years ago.
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