Berrigan has on-field skills to sell
By Paul Malone.
24 Jun 05
NOT even Wayne Bennett's football club pays extra for a low profile. Shaun Berrigan, the invisible Broncos star, is about to find out again.
Berrigan, the NRL's leading tryscorer with 17 from 13 games, is the last of their present State of Origin players the Broncos have to re-sign after this week's inking of new deals by Tonie Carroll and Casey McGuire.
Broncos chief executive Bruno Cullen says he wants the Queensland and Australian centre to sign for another two or three years before the 30 june anti-tampering deadline expires.
The final negotiation will be one-on-one, Berrigan talking to coach Bennett, trying to come to an agreement on what he is worth in dollars to the Broncos and maybe it will happen in a quiet corner during the team's trip to Auckland.
Berrigan's new manager Chris Orr met with Gold Coast yesterday, and Gold Coast managing director Michael Searle said later that while he admired Berrigan's talent he would not be part of their 2007 NRL entry.
Wests Tigers and, to a lesser extent, South Sydney are options should Berrigan decide the extra cash a Sydney club can pay is worth his departure from his home city and his close family.
As a hot on-field property in a market inflated by the cashed-up ambitions of Gold Coast and South Sydney, Berrigan would do plenty for another team off the field and much less in terms of engaging new fans or sponsors.
Give him a flash haircut, a nickname better than "Berro" and a neat turn of phrase and his price would rise faster than other players manage to blurt out: "I have to do the best I can for my family in the time I have left in the game".
To say Berrigan does not court a public profile through media interviews is like saying Wendell Sailor doesn't mind getting his name in the paper occasionally.
The appearance Orr arranged alongside NSW's Anthony Minichiello in a petrol company's television commercial was totally out of character. "If he was going to be an attraction to another club as their marquee player, they'd be looking for more from him in that area and he'd probably recognise that and step up to the mark," Cullen said.
"It's doesn't make him any less valuable to us because we have the sort of personnel who satisfy those requirements. He and (elder brother) Barry are, and this isn't a criticism, knockabout blokes and don't see the benefit in doing anything other than performing on the field.
"Shaun's been one of our priority players. We've had discussions with him, but time is moving on and we want to get moving before he goes to Origin camp next Wednesday."
In deciding what their offer should be, the Broncos know Berrigan, 26, is particularly close to his family and lives at home with his parents, Barry and Barry's fiancee in the western Brisbane suburb of Keperra.
They also know he is mostly popular with teammates for his cheeky ways in the dressingroom, how he sets a good example with his liking for training and brings an unusual skill set to the team.
Berrigan is not over-big and fast like a young Sailor, not quick off the mark like Leon Bott and not elusive like Karmichael Hunt.
He's not over-anything. But he's scored five tries more than anyone in the NRL and is on track to break the club's NRL season scoring record of 23 tries, held jointly by Steve Renouf (1994) and Darren Smith (1998).
An instinctive player, he is a well-honed footballing talent with a valuable knowledge that helps him anticipate what Darren Lockyer and, increasingly, Brett Seymour have in mind.
"He's flying and if he's injury free he'll surpass that (23) quite easily," said Renouf, a former teammate of Berrigan's who retired after the 1999 season.
"He can sniff out a try, which I reckon makes a centre, and he's a good gap runner who puts himself in the right place."
Renouf said Berrigan's try-scoring form was a result of a "dominant" Broncos team in much the same way as he profited in four Brisbane premiership sides.
"There's no way Brisbane should lose Berro. The bottom line is that tries win games," Renouf said. "He's a line breaker for them and they haven't had a dominant centre for a while."
In a conversion where words will be spent as carefully as bank tellers count out $100 notes, Berrigan will hope Bennett sees it that way, too.
