Players benefit as cash floods northern rugby

George Smith is headed to the Sanyo Wild Knights. Photo / Greg Bowker

In the early days of professional rugby, only the very best could command six figure salaries.

Now we sit in a new era where it will be common for players to be earning seven figures.

Inflation in rugby has been rampant and no one really knows whether salaries are close to the summit, or whether they have just arrived at base camp.

The transfer of George Smith from Toulon to Sanyo Wild Knights this week showed just how far rugby has come in the past 15 years. Smith was originally signed by the Eddie Jones-coached Brumbies in 2000 as a 19-year-old open side from the Manly club. He was paid A$35,000 a year.

His new deal with the Wild Knights, who are coached by Jones, is worth almost A$1 million a season. In 11 years, his salary has increased nearly 30-fold. Dan Carter's will too, should he sign with Racing Metro. The Parisian club have offered him $2.2m a season, an extraordinary increase on the $65,000 he would have started on in 2003.

Further evidence of how salaries have exploded came last week when the Ospreys club revealed they had offered utility back James Hook £1 million to stay in Wales - which he turned down. Instead, he signed with Perpignan, who are paying him more.

"We made James Hook a huge offer, had a sponsor in to make him an offer of over £1m to help us over three years and that wasn't enough," said Ospreys managing director Mike Cuddy. "With the money that the French teams are pouring out at the moment, unless we do something about it, in two or three years, we could have the whole Welsh team running out not playing in Wales."

Rugby has come a long way when players are turning down £1m. There are now enormous sums of cash swilling around the game.

Ulster, never considered a big player, have managed to raise almost €1m to sign John Afoa and Jared Payne. They can afford it because the game continues to grow in Europe.

The Heineken Cup quarterfinals demonstrated rugby's new standing. Perpignan shifted their game against Toulonto Barcelona's Olympic Stadium and sold 55,000 tickets. Northampton had to shift to the bigger Stadium: MK to host Ulster, Biarritz took their clash with Toulouse to San Sebastien so they could play at the home of football club Real Sociedad where 32,000 people turned up. Leinster played Leicester in front of 50,000 people at Aviva Stadium, formerly Lansdowne Road.

The money is pouring in, which is why salaries are going crazy and may have some way to go yet. New Zealand has had to respond. Dan Carter and Richie McCaw have been offered close to $1m a season to stay. Back in the early days, the big names, with the exception of Jonah Lomu, were lucky to earn $200,000 a season.

Still, while the contracts offered to Carter and McCaw might be massive in a New Zealand context, one-test All Black Tamati Ellison is earning almost as much in Japan. Rugby players have never had it so good - and it doesn't seem likely that the good times are going to stop any time soon.