Kiwis star said to fancy union

FULL FLIGHT: Benji Marshall giving the Aussies the haka up close.

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The New Zealand Rugby League is not pressing the panic button despite reports that World Cup-winning stand-off half Benji Marshall could be headed for a lucrative rugby union contract.

Reports from Sydney claim Marshall told his Kiwis team-mates at the World Cup that he would look to leave Wests Tigers when his contract expires at the end of next season amid offers from English Super League teams and French and British rugby union clubs.

But the Sydney Morning Herald also asserted that the prospect of earning almost $1.5 million for a stint in Japanese union may stop Marshall from quitting league altogether.

Marshall has attracted interest from Japan, and is believed to be in a position to earn upwards of 90 million yen ($1.49m) a season in the lucrative Top League.

The Japanese season runs in the Australian league off-season, so Marshall may be able to remain in the NRL even after a code switch.

The Kiwis can ill-afford to lose a player of Marshall's box-office draw, but NZRL chairman Ray Haffenden is taking a wait-and-see approach.

"It's just conjecture anyway. It's not happening till the end of next year, and there's a long time between now and then."

Haffenden said there was no point commenting without more detail. But he believed it could be "physically possible" to play NRL rugby league and a short-season rugby union contract.

"(Former Kiwi) Kevin Iro played rugby league in the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere," he noted.

Haffenden said the proposed situation was no different to All Blacks first five-eighths Dan Carter's sabbatical with French rugby union club Perpignan.

Wests Tigers officials, who started negotiations with the 2005 premiership winner's manager Martin Tauber on Friday, have refused to confirm whether they would allow Marshall to test himself in Japanese rugby if it meant him staying at the club, but a similar idea has been floated before.

St George Illawarra chief executive Peter Doust, in attempting to prevent Mark Gasnier from defecting to rugby union last year, put forward the bold idea of allowing him to play in Europe in the off-season.

Marshall is known to harbour a desire to play for the All Blacks, but he is relatively untried in rugby union, having played the sport only while a schoolboy.

The Tigers are facing a battle to keep not only Marshall, but also a player equally important, Robbie Farah, and the fresh development around Marshall comes as another club joins the race for the hooker.

Farah has already toured the Gold Coast with Titans officials, and his manager Sam Ayoub confirmed there had been interest from another club in him.

Tigers officials are likely to meet Ayoub this week, and with Marshall not due back from a holiday nor due at training until the new year, they said they expected Farah's future to be finalised first.

"Obviously we'd prefer it (Farah's negotiations) to not be done so publicly but we're not losing any sleep over that," recruitment manager Warren McDonnell said.

"It's up to Gold Coast and his management."

Asked about the chances of losing both players, McDonnell said: "Who knows? We might not (keep them) if they came back and said we've been offered X-Y-Z and we can only offer X-Y. Everything's got its limits. But we'll be guided by that once we talk to them."

Wests Tigers coach Tim Sheens added of his stars: "They're going to look at their options. Why not? But I think both the boys have a desire to stay here. It's not going to be a matter of them being unhappy here.

"We've spoken to both their managers and both of the boys have indicated they'd like to get it done before the start of the (2009) season. That will settle everybody down," Sheens said.

- © Fairfax NZ News