BY JOHN DAVIDSON
George Gregan is one of Australian rugby union’s greatest-ever players, but he almost ended up in rugby league in the mid-1990s.
A former Wallabies captain, Gregan won the Rugby World Cup in 1999 and earned a record 139 caps for his country. He won two Super Rugby titles with the ACT Brumbies and six Bledisloe Cups.
A Canberra product, the halfback grew up playing both rugby union and rugby league, and fielded two offers from professional rugby league clubs just as his fledgling career was getting off the ground 30 years ago.
“It was Adelaide Rams, there was a little bit with Michael O’Connor,” Gregan told the Stick to Rugby podcast.
“He was a dual international, he was trying to recruit for the Adelaide Rams.
“This was at the end of 1995 when rugby union was about to go professional as well. There was the threat of a rebel league called WRC, so there was a bit change in rugby union occurring.
“And there was a big change in rugby league with the Super League and ARL war.”
The Canberra Raiders also tried to poach Gregan during 1994, the year the Green Machine went on to win the NSWRL premiership.
“I was approached, and I’d been approached actually a year or so before that with the Raiders, with Tim Sheens,” he said.
“That was with Ricky Stuart, Laurie Daley, they were a championship-winning team. But it was to play understudy to Ricky Stuart and I’d just got an AIS scholarship when he approached me.
“Rugby union was amateur then. I was at university and the ACT Kookaburras was our senior representative team, two or three before the Brumbies were established in Super Rugby.
“I declined because… it was flattering that they’d looked at me, but I had unfinished business.
“We’ve been knocked out of the World Cup in 1995 and there was an opportunity to start something. The Brumbies was a start-up, so that was exciting. I don’t regret that decision.”