<big>NRL up ante on Wallaby ace Cooper</big>
AFP August 16, 2010, 12:22 pm
SYDNEY (AFP) - National Rugby League club Parramatta have put the pressure on Australia rugby chiefs to keep hold of in-demand Wallaby star Quade Cooper by tabling a massive offer, newspapers reported on Monday.
As Cooper enters the Wallabies' training camp ahead of this week's trip to South Africa, the Eels are raising the stakes in a deal that would make him the highest-paid player in the NRL, reports said.
Fly-half Cooper, rated the Wallabies' most influential player and recently named Australia's Super 14 player of the year, is in the midst of contract renewal negotiations with the Australian Rugby Union a year away from the World Cup.
Newspapers' accounts of what Parramatta are offering 22-year-old Cooper range from 850,000 dollars (760,000 US) a year to a three-year 500,000 dollar per season deal to convince the Queensland Reds maestro to switch codes.
The Sydney Morning Herald said not only would the Parramatta deal make Cooper the highest-paid player in the NRL, it would also dwarf the reported 400,000 dollar offer put to him by the ARU.
ARU boss John O'Neill last week dismissed the reports of NRL interest as a negotiation stunt by the player's agent and said Cooper would not be lost to rugby league.
"He's got the world at his feet in our game, he's got a World Cup next year, he's a player we want to retain and we're confident in the coming week or so we'll have a satisfactory deal done," O'Neill told reporters.
Reports Monday said Cooper is far from the highest-paid Wallabies player and his deal is understood to be worth less than 300,000 dollars a year, with the ARU paying 110,000 dollars on top of the 150,000 dollars he receives from the Queensland Reds.
But the ARU offer would be enhanced because players have the opportunity to earn 12,500 dollars for each Test they play.
Cooper grew up playing both league and union until 17 and has an ambition to one day play in the NRL, but said last week playing rugby for the Wallabies and Reds remained his priority.
Reports said Cooper and his agent met last Thursday with Parramatta Eels officials and their star fullback Jarryd Hayne.
Parramatta chairman Roy Spagnolo told the Daily Telegraph the Eels would have no issues fitting Cooper into their 4.2 million dollar NRL salary cap next season because of player departures and retirements.
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