Rugby: Hayman's choice - come home or make hay

Carl Hayman is headhunted in two hemispheres. Photo / Getty Images

Former All Black tight-head prop Carl Hayman is understood to be the target of one of the biggest financial offers to stay in Northern Hemisphere rugby.

Guinness Premiership outfit London Irish and French Top 14 club Clermont Auvergne, coached by Kiwi Vern Cotter, are said to be vying for the prop for a reported annual fee of €500,000 ($982,000).

The plan would muddy the waters for a possible return home by Hayman this May, at the end of the English Premiership season.

That had been increasingly regarded as the likeliest scenario after Hayman, now 29, had finished his third season with English Premiership club Newcastle.

He has hardly been struggling on a pauper's wage at the northeast club. It is said he earns £350,000 a year ($795,500). French Top 14 club Racing Metro pay South African World Cup star Frans Steyn €750,000 ($1.5 million) a season.

The New Zealand Rugby Union has long since offered Hayman the best possible deal it can. But it wouldn't be a milk bill compared with the sums on offer in Europe.

Clermont Auvergne can afford such salaries. They are backed by the biggest employer in the region, the wealthy Michelin tyre company.

Money may be short in most parts of the world but when it comes to financing mega deals to lure the top Southern Hemisphere rugby stars to France, the sky is the limit.

Hayman, as he has been for quite some time, is said to be wrestling with his dilemma.

In so physical a sport, where your next match could be your last, could anyone seriously criticise the big man if he snapped up a three-year deal on those terms with Clermont? Many might think he'd be a mug not to.

Even so, the smart money remains on a Hayman move home.

Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London