Former NFL convert Alex Gray has revealed how Eddie Jones tried to sign him as England’s first centrally contracted player after his return to rugby union.
The former Bath, London Irish and Newcastle Falcons star, who now appears as Apollo on the BBC’s ‘Gladiators’, returned to rugby union in 2020 after three years in the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad in the NFL.
However, prior to signing for Bath, the former GB Sevens international reached out to then England head coach Eddie Jones about becoming a centrally contracted player with the national team as a hybrid player – an idea the Australian had mooted at the time.
Joining the Stick to Rugby podcast recently, Gray explained how those conversations went, and how close Jones was to getting the deal over the line before it fell through.
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“So Covid happens, I’m in the airport heading home and everyone’s talking about this Covid thing and I think it’ll be gone within a month or two and I’ll be back in the US,” the 34-year-old said.
“So, I probably had a split decision to make. Do I stay in the US? Do I head back to the UK? I go back to the UK. Lo and behold, 18 months go by, my visa runs out. Can’t get a team without a visa. Can’t get a visa without a team. So that’s tough.
“After about 18 months, it’s like, what do I do now? I went back to rugby, joined Bath as a winger – too handsome to play in the forwards. I kind of knew that.
“In that 18-month period, I actually contacted [Eddie Jones] and said I’d heard about all this hybrid stuff he was talking about. Look, I played in the forwards. I’m probably one of the only people around who could go up in a lineout and run a try in. Because at that time, being in the NFL, all my physical stats were through the roof, I was running over 10 metres per second. I was 113 kilos, could change direction on a dime, I was an animal at that point. That’s what that league does for you.
“He was super interested. I’m not sure if it was just for headline bait or whatever, but I met him a couple of times and he was actually trying to get a deal over the line to get the first ever central contract because I said to him, ‘What I can imagine will happen here is I will go to a Premiership team and I’ll get stuck behind XYZ in the pecking order while I’m trying to learn my way.’ And I said, ‘Can I not just come to the camps with you guys? You can have a look at me. Do we think you can make it work? If not, then I’ll I’ll go off to a team, whatever. And then you can place me wherever you want.’
“He likes to be a forward thinker, doesn’t he? I think he was all behind that. He was trying to get it past Bill Sweeney, but I think they just let like 170 people go, so there was just no money. And he said, ‘Look, sorry, mate. There’s no money in the pot for you.’ So I was like, ‘Right, fine.’ So that was that, that door got shut. It was an exciting time, but it just didn’t didn’t come off. And then because what he wanted like a [Levani] Botia from La Rochelle – he wanted a guy who could play in the back-row could also play centre, winger. Unbelievable.
“It was an interesting turn of events that whole journey. But I had a good time at Bath. Didn’t play as much as I wanted to. I didn’t get a preseason with them. That’s the thing. I came in in October. So I was having to learn everything on the fly.”