Sydney Roosters forward Angus Crichton has admitted he has the 2023 World Cup in his sights.
“Yeah of course (it’s something I’m considering),” Crichton told the Hello Sport podcast.
“I’ve signed with the Chooks for 2019/20/21, so obviously you think about these sort of things.
“You never want to sign a 10-year deal cause you never know what the game is going to do, you never know what you’re going to do as a player. What you can achieve elsewhere.”
The former Australian Schoolboys rugby star conceded he probably would have stuck to the 15-a-side game if not for being recruited by former Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire.
“I probably wouldn’t have spoken to league if I had an offer from the Waratahs or an offer from union but the way it’s turned out I’m so happy they didn’t offer me anything cause if they did I’ve got no idea what I’d be doing right now,” he continued.
“I sat down with them and they said, ‘We can’t offer you any full time training’. That’s the thing a lot of people say, ‘Oh he left union to get money’, when that’s just complete trash.
“My first contract in league was $15k. That’s not really big money for a kid to leave school, union are throwing three times that at kids these days.
“So I sat down with them (Rugby Australia) and they said to me, ‘We can really see you playing first grade until you’re around 23. I’m 22.
“So they said ‘come and train with our under 20s’ and that was like three times during the week in the afternoons or something. Then I sat down with the Souths coach, Michael Maguire, and he said, ‘We’ll offer you a year of under 20s where you’re training full time everyday with the first-grade squad and then a year full-time where you’re in our top 25 players’. That was just an easy decision for me.”
The 22-year old said he will honour his contract with Sydney before making a call on his next, contrarily to a trend developing in the modern game.
“I’m happy that I stuck by my contract cause as you have seen in sport these days especially in rugby league contracts don’t mean a whole heap. I guess I’m just sort of happy in myself that I stuck true,” he said.
Crichton added that he spoke to Souths owner Russel Crowe face to face to tell him he was departing the club to join the arch-rivals.
“He knew I was coming but I think he thought I was going up there to just catch up for a dinner or something,” he said.
“He’s a really good dude. I couldn’t say a bad word about him and the way that he took the news and the way he reacted was very professional and a testament to him.
“I was absolutely shitting myself. I’ve seen him do some stuff before which I won’t repeat but I was just like, ‘I don’t know how he could take this. I don’t know how he could react’.
“But I’m happy with the way I did it, like I said sticking to my contract and going up there and telling them face to face, and making sure that I told them, and the first time they heard it was from me.
“That’s just how I wanted to go about things so I’m happy with how it turned out.”