'I could have done a Dupont before Dupont did it': George North

Welsh rugby superstar George North has revealed how he turned down a big-money offer to switch codes and move to the NRL after the 2013 Lions tour.

And he has also disclosed how he turned his back on the chance to become an Olympian like his then partner and now wife, cyclist Becky James.

Writing in his autobiography, the record-breaking winger says the latter decision was the most regrettable, especially after Antoine Dupont made the switch from 15s to sevens in Paris in 2023.

But the cross-code opportunity came first. The way North picked up and carried Israel Folau on his back for a good 10 metres made him the talk of the town that summer, and league scouts were clearly impressed by his pace and power.

However, North chose not to cross the divide like Folau, as playing for Wales, which he did 121 times, was all he ever dreamed of.

“There were a few bids, had I wanted to set them off against each other. League is huge out there; the NRL is a great place to be, if that’s your thing. Switching codes used to happen all the time, at a certain point in Welsh rugby union history,” said North, who is playing out his career in France’s Pro D2 with Provence.

“I thought about it. The money was obviously good. It wasn’t just about looking after myself. I could have made my own family comfortable and laid down the foundations for a future family yet to come.

“Maybe I should have been more impulsive and given it a go. But my dreams in Rhoscolyn and Llandovery and beyond had always been about playing for Wales.

“When you got to the last page of the (bucket) list on the back of the bedroom door, that was the bottom line. It didn’t mention well-run, financially sound clubs in the Sydney suburbs. It didn’t mention a bigger car or two spare bedrooms.

“So I said no. I came back to the colder northern hemisphere, and I cracked on, and I didn’t look back that much.”

North went on to rewrite the record books in a stellar career for Wales and the Lions. In February 2021, he became the youngest player to reach 100 Test caps, achieving the milestone at the age of 28 years and 320 days, surpassing Australia’s Michael Hooper by 28 days. Meanwhile, his tally of 47 tries for Wales makes him the second-highest try-scorer in the country’s history.

In a golden period for Wales, North was a two-time Grand Slam winner, but he could have potentially been part of something bigger – the Olympic Games.

Becky James won two silver medals as part of the GB track cycling team at Rio 2016, and had things turned out differently, North could have been there, too.

“I was already invested in the 2016 Olympics in Rio; Becky was in form, months before, and looking good for a tilt at both the sprint and the keirin. Then came a surprise call: there was a chance, if I wanted to take it up, to have a crack at making the Great Britain rugby sevens squad,” said North, whose Test career spanned 14 years, from 2010 to 2024.

“When Antoine Dupont did it for the Paris Olympics, eight years later, he sat out the Six Nations in the spring before. There’s a huge amount to learn when you drop down from 15-a-side to sevens. Your body shape has to change. Your engine needs significant tweaks.

“The way it was being put to me was slightly easier: have a go at two tournaments with Wales, see how it goes, take it from there. It’s possible that if we’d gone down that route, it would have closed the conversation off on its own. I would have had to drop a load of weight.

“The boys in the squad were specialists, pretty much. They had been playing it for years and knew it inside out. We had Jonathan Davies’ younger brother, James, in the set-up, who played for the national side as well, Cubby to his big bro’s Fox, but he was an exception.

“I’m not arrogant enough to assume I could have taken the place of any of these lads. The stumbling block was how much time it would have meant away from Northampton.

“When I sat down and talked about it with the club – and it was a fair conversation – it was clear they had objections. Head coach Jim Mallinder was a good man. There wasn’t much, ‘No, you’re not doing it.’ It was more, ‘Well, you haven’t really mentioned this before …’, and, ‘You’ve never done this in your previous rugby life, so why would you want to start now?’

“It wasn’t hard to fall into line with their thinking. There’s always another game to play, another training session to turn up to bright and bouncy. You don’t drag your disappointments with you if you want to stay connected to a playing environment. Yet when those played out, and Becky won her two silver medals, and the GB boys got all the way to the final before being taken apart by a sensational Fiji side, I did look back and wonder.

“I could have had a silver medal to match Becky’s. I could have experienced an entirely new form of elite sport and elite environment – stayed in an Olympic athletes’ village, done the opening ceremony, worn a GB tracksuit. Possibly the blazer too. I could have done a Dupont before Dupont did it. I could have been the OG Dupont, without the unreal skills and French flair.

“So that’s the regret that sticks. And maybe it would have been what I needed at that time, because I was slipping into a period of my career where things didn’t quite come off the rails, but I found myself shunted into a few tracks that I never envisioned going down.”

No Other Place: My Autobiography by George North, available now in hardback (HarperNonFiction, £22)