Waratahs target Anasta
By Peter Jenkins
June 26, 2004
BULLDOGS star Braith Anasta is the next rugby league target as the NSW Waratahs resume the search for a match-winner to fill their five-eighth hotseat.
Braith Anasta...played rugby as a teenager.
Sources revealed that within hours of Andrew Johns turning down an offer to join the Super 12 franchise, the Waratahs had installed Anasta as their next major priority.
The NSW Rugby Union is also confident the Australian Rugby Union would be on board, unlike in their chase for Johns when the national body refused to provide top-up funds and the Waratahs were forced to go it alone.
While Anasta is under contract until the end of next season, NSW officials deny that moves to have him cross codes before his existing deal with his NRL club expires qualify as the impossible dream.
They are working on a theory that the Bulldogs may be interested in letting him go to ease the club's salary-cap pressures.
"He's definitely in the frame, definitely being looked at for next year," said a NSW official.
Anasta, 22, has a rugby union background, having played the game from ages 10 to 16 in the Randwick juniors with Coogee. Wallabies centre Morgan Turinui, a Clovelly product, played alongside Anasta in age group representative sides.
"When we started, I was halfback and he was five-eighth," Turinui said last night. "I moved to the centres a couple of years later. But we were in the same Randwick rep team. And he could play. Braith had a good pass, was good on defence and was a really good decision-maker.
"I know that was a long time ago but you don't lose a lot of those skills. He quit rugby when he was 17 but he was always a standout at that age. I think he played Sydney under-16s."
On the basis of Anasta's age and his history in the game, the Waratahs are confident the ARU would agree to outlaying financial support in any chase for the star.
NSWRU chief executive Fraser Neill openly admitted the Waratahs would continue to cast their net wide for players, including those in the rugby league ranks.
"We've always gone on the basis that it's a professional sport and we find the best players to fill the positions we need filled," Neill said.
"Obviously if it's like for like in union and league you go for the union guys.
"We're doing a lot of work to expand our academy structures so in the long term we're not placed in these positions and our players will be coming out of union ranks."
Until then, Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie will run his eye over any other potential recruits.
"We're in the process of fine-tuning our squad for next year and that involves hard decisions and bold decisions," McKenzie said.
"We'll keep going. I've been out looking and talking to people so that continues regardless.
"I'll just keep that process going until I'm happy with players. But we're not just looking at [five-eighth]. We're looking at other positions as well."
