Peter Jackson: Can Jamie say Non to a fortune in Paris?

Racing Metro have put their offer for Jamie Roberts on the table – a basic £350,000-a-year for three years from next summer. The figure is after tax, a net sum designed to net a big fish.
Jacky Lorenzetti is understood to have authorised the finalising of a pre-contract in negotiation with Roberts’ London-based agent ready for signing when transfer rules permit, in the New Year. Racing’s president, a real estate magnate whose nationwide estate agency spans the length and breadth of France, is not slow when it comes to paying top dollar.
Last year, when the All Blacks confirmed that Dan Carter would be given a second sabbatical post-World Cup, Racing made a bid for the Kiwi which would have made him the highest paid player in the world at more than £1m-a-year.
The gross deal for Roberts of around £500,000-a-year may be a lot less but it is roughly three times more than the Lions centre earns from the Cardiff Blues.
That Racing want him that badly will do more than test Welsh resolve to cobble together a counter-offer to keep the prospective Dr Roberts in Wales. Even if the talks between the WRU and the Blues over a joint bid amount to anything, they cannot hope to match what’s on offer in Paris.
They can only hope to convince Roberts that it isn’t just about the money, a contradiction if ever there was one given that most professional sport is all about the money. Staying put, as articulated by Blues chairman Peter Thomas in The Rugby Paper three weeks ago, will mean more by the way of tender loving care from his Welsh employers.
Racing have a tradition for eccentric behaviour, a sort of acknowledgement to their fun amateur past. At half-time during the 1990 French final against Agen, for example, their players reportedly quaffed champagne instead of sucking oranges. It may have been pure coincidence but they lost the match and have not reached the final since.
Their try-count for this season – five in the first eight matches – suggests an urgent need for some fizz which is probably why M. Lorenzetti is anxious to obtain Roberts’ service. Promises of his being looked after better if he stays put is unlikely to cut any ice with any player, least of all when he can relocate to one of the more wondrous capitals of the world and virtually treble his pay in the process.
The prospect of not being released for any international outside the IRB Test window or for the annual refrigeration week in Poland does not sound much of a deterrent. Wales take off today for the deep-freeze chambers in Poland without their French contingent – Mike Phillips, Lee Byrne, James Hook, Luke Charteris and Gethin Jenkins.
The English-based duo of Craig Mitchell and Andy Powell are in the same boat but then everyone knew that whenever they signed. With the autumn series starting next week against Argentina, a lot has been spouted of late about whether any of those players would be released for the match falling outside the three-week period set aside for Tests – Australia on December 1.
When will everyone on this side of the Channel understand that the French clubs have businesses to run? The five aforementioned Welsh émigrés are all substantially better off financially for having joined Bayonne, Clermont, Perpignan and Toulon respectively.
Why, then, should anyone expect any of those clubs to do Wales, or any other country for that matter, a favour and release them when they are under no IRB obligation to do so. For many, especially in the South-west, the French club championship is a bigger deal than winning the European Cup or the Six Nations.
Unless the WRU cough up the money to ensure that the best of those still in Wales stay put, then Roberts will not be the only one to head for greener fields. Others, most notably Leigh Halfpenny and Dan Biggar, are also out-of-contract at the end of the season.