{"id":438712,"date":"2026-01-26T14:48:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T14:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/438712\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T14:48:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T14:48:49","slug":"roosters-nrl-premiership-hero-angus-crichton-jumps-ship-to-join-wallabies-world-cup-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/438712\/","title":{"rendered":"Roosters NRL premiership hero Angus Crichton jumps ship to join Wallabies\u2019 World Cup bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney Roosters<\/a> premiership winner Angus Crichton will jump ship from the NRL<\/a> to join the Wallabies\u2019 bid to win the 2027 Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old grew up playing the 15-man game and will reunite with former Roosters teammate Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii at the NSW Waratahs and, if everything goes to plan, in the Australian squad.<\/p>\n

Multiple reports say Crichton will play out the 2026 NRL season with the Roosters before linking up with Rugby Australia.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Crichton, the Roosters and Rugby Australia are yet to officially confirm the move.<\/p>\n

The NSW State of Origin star helped the Kangaroos to an Ashes series triumph over England late last year.<\/p>\n

But he would appear almost certain to be ruled out of contention for the 2026 Rugby League World Cup beginning in October<\/a> as he turns his focus to the Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n

He is set to debut for the Waratahs in the 2027 Super Rugby season from February before the Rugby World Cup takes place in October that year.<\/p>\n

Crichton is the second Roosters and Kangaroos star to plot a code switch ahead of the World Cup, with Mark Nawaqanitawase already locked in for his own bid to join the Wallabies.<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase will also play out 2026 in the NRL before he heads to Japanese rugby.<\/p>\n

\"CrichtonCrichton lifted the Origin shield with NSW in 2024. Credit: View<\/p>\n

Crichton spoke only last year of being \u201cvery close\u201d to joining the Western Force at the end of 2023 before talks with Rugby Australia soured.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very close,\u201d the candid second-rower said ahead of State of Origin in Perth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to go. It was more the writing was on the wall for me at the Roosters and it didn\u2019t look like my spot was going to be there for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still had a (Roosters) contract at the time, and I said to my manager I don\u2019t want to go anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said they have told me you need to move on and that was going to be the best option for me, to go there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty close, but I am very happy I am here in a Blues jersey for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crichton was adamant he never wanted to leave the Roosters ahead of what already loomed as a mass exodus at the NRL club in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was saying to my manager I don\u2019t care if they don\u2019t want me, I just want to stay and be part of these guys\u2019 last year,\u201d Crichton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to go out after having the season I did in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to go out and giving my best performance and make sure people remember me as the player I am, not the player I was in 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crichton ultimately won out, fought his way out of reserve grade, had a career-best year for the Roosters and was NSW\u2019s best in their 2024 series win.<\/p>\n

Rugby Australia\u2019s dual coup to nab Crichton and Nawaqanitawase, after Suaalii\u2019s arrival last year, will offer a much-needed boost for the Wallabies if they can impress in 2027.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies have lost seven of their last eight matches with coach Joe Schmidt under serious pressure before the planned handover to Len Kiss later this year.<\/p>\n

– with AAP<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney Roosters premiership winner Angus Crichton will jump ship from the NRL to join the Wallabies\u2019 bid to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,2633,15131,588,85,1080,2500],"class_list":["post-438712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-rugby-union","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-sydney-roosters","tag-wallabies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}