Three-time NRL premiership winner Luke Keary has revealed both the Melbourne Storm and St George Illawarra Dragons, as well as rugby union outfit the Waratahs were interested in his services early in his career.
Keary, who eventually made the jump from the South Sydney Rabbitohs to the Sydney Roosters at the end of 2016, won premierships with both of those clubs, but almost saw his career go on a different trajectory entirely.
The half, predominantly a five-eighth, told Backstage with Cooper and Matty Johns that the Storm would have been a likelihood if the offer on the table had been more than minimum wage that Craig Bellamy evidently offered.
“I knew I had to get to a good club because I wasn't playing well, so it was Melbourne, the Dragons and the Waratahs,” Keary said on the show.
“With Craig, I remember saying to him I don't care about the money, I just want to come down there and play with Cooper, Billy and Cameron.
“He sent the offer through and I nearly fell off my chair. It was deadset minimum wage. I would have had to sell everything I had to get down there.”
Keary was also courted by the Dragons, but said the role Paul McGregor wanted him to play - halfback - was something he simply knew he wouldn't have been able to do.
“Mary was impressive. He took me down there, explained what they were building with Gareth Widdop. He was so impressive,” Keary said of the Dragons.
“The thing that swayed me away from the Dragons was that he told me I was going to be the number seven, the leader of this side, and I knew I couldn't do that.
“I knew when he said it, deep down, I was like, I knew I couldn't do it, that you're going to pay me a lot of money to do a job I couldn't do.”
Keary, who was born in Ipswich, was also courted by the Waratahs after playing for the Australian Schoolboys Rugby Union team as a teenager, but ended up joining he Roosters where he went on to add two NRL premierships to the one he won at the Rabbitohs in 2014.
Keary, who played 231 NRL games across the two clubs before finishing his career with a 2025 stint at the Catalans Dragons, likely would have cracked 300 games if not for numerous concussion and injury problems throughout his career.
