ADAM FREIER will remain with the Waratahs, but Rocky Elsom has finally announced he will not be part of NSW's 2009 Super 14 campaign after being granted an early release by the Australian Rugby Union.

The ARU yesterday agreed to let Elsom leave the Wallabies following this year's Tri Nations "on compassionate grounds" so he can take up a deal with Leinster in Ireland. The length of the Leinster deal is uncertain, as Elsom remains eager to play for Australia at the 2011 World Cup.

Though neither player nor the ARU would reveal what the "compassionate grounds" are, they are understood to revolve around financial matters.

The Elsom announcement came at the same time Freier agreed to a two-year deal to remain with the Waratahs and Wallabies, after seriously contemplating lucrative offers from overseas and other Australian provinces.

Elsom will head for Leinster in mid-September and although he wanted to be part of the end-of-season Wallabies tour of Europe in November-December, he will not be selected.

"I'd like to keep playing for Australia, and the long-term goal is to play for Australia in the next World Cup," Elsom said yesterday. "The time I will be away [with Leinster] is very open-ended. It is hard to say at this stage. But this is something I need to do."

ARU chief executive John O'Neill said that while details of his dealings with Elsom would remain confidential, "Rocky has been offered and taken advice about his future. Our aim was to have him in Australian rugby for the long term.

"This is not about offering a convenient sabbatical for a player to take up a contract in Europe. It's simply a decision taken on compassionate grounds in the best interest of Rocky, and we believe in the best of interests of Australian rugby when he returns.

"The reality is that we might have lost him permanently when he came off contract at the end of the year if we hadn't helped in the way we had. An early release also opens the door for Rocky returning to Australia as soon as possible, hopefully the middle of next year."

O'Neill said Elsom would not be selected for the end-of-season Wallabies tour because "the current ARU policy is that only players in Australia are eligible for Wallabies selection, and it's not appropriate to change that policy."

O'Neill also warned players not to see the Elsom case as a precedent and said they should not think they could engineer similar releases to grab the quick bucks in Europe.

"On each and every occasion, the compassionate grounds have to be genuine; well argued. We're not in the business of being part of an artificial arrangement," O'Neill said. "We're not a country with a massive depth of talent, and the idea that players can knock on the door asking for sabbaticals is something we're not going to contemplate."

Freier, meanwhile, said the appointment of Robbie Deans to succeed John Connolly as Wallabies coach had been crucial to his decision to remain in Australia, especially as he was "pretty close" to heading overseas.

"My decision definitely changed when seeing how the Wallabies operate under Robbie," Freier said yesterday.

"He's definitely brought a different way of thinking, and that was a very telling factor in my decision. If I had come back to the same old regime and the same old faces, maybe the decision would have been different."