Dragons boss Dai Flanagan has praised Wales international Ross Moriarty as he revealed that the star has not turned down the offer of signing a new contract with the region. However, the coach admitted the 28-year-old has got a big decision to make having been linked with a move overseas.
Moriarty is on the verge of leaving Welsh rugby, with French club Bayonne the front runners for his signature. The back-rower's contract at Rodney Parade runs out at the end of the season and as a result he has been attracting the interest of English, French and Japanese clubs.
With the Welsh Rugby Union's controversial 60-cap rule now reduced to 25 it means Moriarty, who has 54 caps, would remain eligible to play for Wales should he sign for a club outside the country, but such a move would come as a big blow to the Dragons, who are set to offer him a maximum value contract.
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Despite being omitted from Warren Gatland's Six Nations squad, the forward is one of the most sought-after players on the market, with his physicality and ball carrying of interest to clubs in England and France. All signs have pointed to Moriarty playing his rugby outside of Wales next season, but Flanagan has revealed that he is one of 12 Dragons players who have been offered a verbal contract, with none of those rejecting so far. However, the region is not yet in a place to be able to offer players written contracts to sign.
"Ross has probably got decisions to make and we want to make a rounded decision that is the best for Ross," the Dragons coach told a press conference on Thursday. "We want to be in a position where we can offer him a formal contract, not just a verbal contract, because then Ross has got a decision to make.
"I’m not going to speak for Ross, but I'd like to think he's enjoying his environment, I think he's improving. And you see an element of Ross' game, the amount of the rugby he's played this year and how we've managed that, he's been superb."
Asked if his frustrations at being a shock omission from the Six Nations squad may influence his decision to potentially leave, Flanagan said: "It could do, when he’s sitting around the table with his family, it probably does. But I also think Ross harbours a belief that he should be in a Welsh squad. No one in Welsh rugby does what Ross does, that’s all I’ll say.
"He’s physical every time he steps on the field, his ball carrying is as good as you find in Europe. His work rate is through the roof and what he is developing now is leadership and people follow him through that. He's been superb for me as a young coach and you can see that with the way he’s repaid it in his performances.
"You forget, Ross is only 28 years old. He seems to have been around for a long time but he’s still got lots and lots of rugby in him. He's been hampered by injuries for the last few years and we've managed him accordingly this year, and you can see how many games we’ve managed to get him into."
Flanagan also opened up on the current contract situation, saying there is a "firm belief" within the game that an opportunity to offer players formal, legally-binding contracts is "very, very close". He also admitted that he would not want to hold players back from experiencing other leagues, but expressed hope that the players offered new contracts would stay.
"Verbal contracts from our end went out the day we were allowed to give them because we've planned, we've been prepared and we understand the financial market we’re in," he said. "But also I think we've been very smart with our business and hopefully players will appreciate that here. Regarding a formal legal binding document, paper they can sign, we're not at that stage just yet but there's a firm belief in the game that that's very, very close and as soon as we're allowed to do, the day that we're able to, that will go out to all of the players."
"We won’t know the answer until the players actually get the decision to make," he added. "We've offered 12 verbal contracts and not one player has come to me saying no yet, so that's always a good sign. Obviously, they will want to delay and they’ll want time when the physical contract comes through, because if someone turns down a contract in Cardiff then suddenly they may speak to another player. The sooner we can get the actual paperwork and stuff to them, the faster we can come to conclusions.
"Some players may leave Wales because they want to experience a French league, a Japanese league or they want to play in England. As a young coach myself, I want to build my trade and I'm sure one day in the long future I want to experience something like that as well. You don't want to hold players back from experiences."
Wages are set to be dramatically pushed down in Wales next season, with £278,000 a year the maximum a player can earn, while playing budgets at the four regions will eventually be reduced to £4.5million. But despite this, Flanagan is hopeful that the Dragons' squad size won't be impacted too heavily.
"I don’t think our squad size is going to change dramatically," he said. "I think we are one of the smallest squads anyway this year. It gives us an opportunity to put youngsters on the field and give us an opportunity to back youngsters but also provide them with an opportunity to excel.
"I think continuity will be really big for us and we are in a place to keep good continuity in our squad. You read a lot of articles and I’m not in the conversations, but I think other places may have to change a little bit and that's a shame, but for us, we've got good youngsters coming through, we've got a lot of quality professionals like Steff Hughes who's going to enhance the youngsters’ learning and then we've got our stardust in [Aaron] Wainwright, Moriarty, Taine [Basham], Ollie [Griffiths], [Harri] Keddie.
"They’ll all still hopefully be here next year as long as we can get most of them across the line. So I do firmly believe continuity will be really good for us going into next year. We've learned some lessons this year that this group can hopefully improve from."
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