Full-back Kris Radlinski has snubbed a move to rugby union by signing a new contract with Super League side Wigan. "I've no real desire to play rugby union," said the 29-year-old star, who has agreed a deal that will keep him at the club until the end of 2007.
He revealed he had been in talks about a cross-code switch with Leeds Tykes and London Irish but said he wanted to stay loyal to his hometown club.
"There were a couple of reasons to go but so many to stay," he explained.
"The change of lifestyle would be the main reason for going but that's not worth giving everything up for."
Radlinski, who said the last few weeks had been "the hardest of my career and my life", said he hoped his decision would end all talk of a move to union.
 |  It would have been gut-wrenching for rugby union to have taken him away |
"I never went to rugby union, they came to me," he said. "But I'm committed now and hopefully that's the end of it.
"I have lost a lot of sleep in the last few weeks but I could not see myself walking away from this town."
Wigan chairman Maurice Lindsay admitted that losing Radlinski would have been another major blow following so closely in the wake of Andy Farrell's defection to union.
"To lose Radlinski and Andy Farrell in one season would have been unbearable," he said.
"You can search the world for star players but when one was born and lives in your town, it would have been gut-wrenching for rugby union to have taken him away."
Wigan coach Ian Millward said Radlinski was a talismanic figure who made a big impact whenever he played for the Warriors.
"He gives us so much confidence, so much experience and so much solidity at the back, I could not be more happy as a coach to have a great player like him still on board," he said.
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