Silly Season Transfer Rumours 23/24

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I need rumours.....and I need them now!

Oakdene wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

Oakdene wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Scarlets have signed TH prop Joe Jones from Sale Sharks.

We needed that!!

Yes a TH was desperately needed. Jones was a decent player when he was young, he didn't seem to kick on though. Hopefully this isn't another WillGriff John  

I just said that to my mate, "lets hope this works out better than the last prop we signed from Sale".

I mean, he can't be worse can he?

Rumours of a South African player coming to PYS too.

It's a shame because John has all the minerals, but was injured quite often and didn't put in any consistent performances.

Which position? Is it Cameron Hankoem?

Cam Redpath moving up to Scotland?

Not clear which team it might be though

BigGee wrote:Cam Redpath moving up to Scotland?

Not clear which team it might be though

Why? Playing 12 alongside Russell at 10 for Bath seems a good match for club and country. Didn't think the Scottish clubs were short on centres.

I guess Bath also well stocked for centres with Ojomoh and Lawrence now. He is not getting picked every week and may feel it does his Scotland chances no harm being under Toonies nose.

Glasgow certainly not short of decent centres, Edinburgh less so.

Unless they feel he could do a turn at FH, Glasgow certainly need one of those?

mikey_dragon wrote:

Oakdene wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

Oakdene wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Scarlets have signed TH prop Joe Jones from Sale Sharks.

We needed that!!

Yes a TH was desperately needed. Jones was a decent player when he was young, he didn't seem to kick on though. Hopefully this isn't another WillGriff John  

I just said that to my mate, "lets hope this works out better than the last prop we signed from Sale".

I mean, he can't be worse can he?

Rumours of a South African player coming to PYS too.

It's a shame because John has all the minerals, but was injured quite often and didn't put in any consistent performances.

Which position? Is it Cameron Hankoem?

WOL now running with it, Eduan Swart (hooker). If you had kept Dafydd Hughes you'd be okay at hooker. Shaun Evans doesn't look great. I guess this could be a sign that Ken Owens isn't returning, which would be a shame as he was still good at 36! I assumed you would be getting a lock, you need at least one big Saffa there, whilst Cardiff need two and Dragons need ten.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

BigGee wrote:Cam Redpath moving up to Scotland?

Not clear which team it might be though

Why? Playing 12 alongside Russell at 10 for Bath seems a good match for club and country. Didn't think the Scottish clubs were short on centres.

I would be very surprised if Redpath moves. He isn't going to get a start for Glasgow where Sione Tuipulotu and St Shug of Jones reign supreme. He might at Edinburgh but that is a definite step down considering how well Bath started the season.

Well redpath has had a bit of s atop start season. Doesn't seem to be a settled midfield at the moment and is he going to be 1st choice?

No 7&1/2 wrote:Well redpath has had a bit of s atop start season. Doesn't seem to be a settled midfield at the moment and is he going to be 1st choice?

van Graan has rotated his options a bit. Even so five starts in seven rounds in which he played all 80 mins. Came off the bench on Friday so only been one Prem game he hasn't featured in.

Generally Redpath's career has been stop start because he gets injured.

And the 1 at 13. Will be interesting to see when all 3 main players are fit. But he'll be on a good wage so wouldn't be surprised to see that it's him who moves on.

No 7&1/2 wrote:And the 1 at 13. Will be interesting to see when all 3 main players are fit. But he'll be on a good wage so wouldn't be surprised to see that it's him who moves on.

Bath don't have a problem with paying big salaries. They are one of the sides pushing for the increase in the salary cap. Having three good centres and then Butt as back up is a good place for the squad. Not much point in having Russell if you then don't have a good midfield with some depth for him to work with.

I'd imagine Redpath and Lawrence will be the first choice pairing with Ojomoh used as an impact sub or for rotation. van Graan seems to like Will Butt as a physical presence as well which is a nice alternative.

Redpath heading north would only make sense if the SRU are pushing it as a way back into the international fold. Jones and Harris won't make the next world cup so options will need to be developed.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

Redpath heading north would only make sense if the SRU are pushing it as a way back into the international fold. Jones and Harris won't make the next world cup so options will need to be developed.

Harris won't but I would not completely rule Jones out. It might largely depend if he can stay fit!

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:And the 1 at 13. Will be interesting to see when all 3 main players are fit. But he'll be on a good wage so wouldn't be surprised to see that it's him who moves on.

Bath don't have a problem with paying big salaries. They are one of the sides pushing for the increase in the salary cap. Having three good centres and then Butt as back up is a good place for the squad. Not much point in having Russell if you then don't have a good midfield with some depth for him to work with.

I'd imagine Redpath and Lawrence will be the first choice pairing with Ojomoh used as an impact sub or for rotation. van Graan seems to like Will Butt as a physical presence as well which is a nice alternative.

Redpath heading north would only make sense if the SRU are pushing it as a way back into the international fold. Jones and Harris won't make the next world cup so options will need to be developed.

There's a little more focus these days tho!

I'd be astonished if the SRU can outbid Bath. The cap goes back up next season and Bruce Craig isn't short of spending money.

Tomos Williams has started contract talks with an unnamed English side.

When is St George of North off to the Pro 2 then?

A year in Provence?

George Carlin wrote:When is St George of North off to the Pro 2 then?

A year in Provence?

Next season by all accounts.

George Carlin wrote:When is St George of North off to the Pro 2 then?

A year in Provence?

Presumably next summer. The Provence side is solid mid table currently. Gopperth, Francis and Harrison are all there so some familiar faces. They must fancy pushing on.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

George Carlin wrote:When is St George of North off to the Pro 2 then?

A year in Provence?

Presumably next summer. The Provence side is solid mid table currently. Gopperth, Francis and Harrison are all there so some familiar faces. They must fancy pushing on.

They're sitting 3rd & 1 point off second.

Oakdene wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

George Carlin wrote:When is St George of North off to the Pro 2 then?

A year in Provence?

Presumably next summer. The Provence side is solid mid table currently. Gopperth, Francis and Harrison are all there so some familiar faces. They must fancy pushing on.

They're sitting 3rd & 1 point off second.

Thanks. Clearly my info was out of date or I looked at last year's table or something.

Jack Singleton to France on loan for the season.

propdavid_london wrote:Jack Singleton to France on loan for the season.

Medical joker move to Toulon. Makes sense with him needing game time and Glaws having several hookers.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

Oakdene wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

George Carlin wrote:When is St George of North off to the Pro 2 then?

A year in Provence?

Presumably next summer. The Provence side is solid mid table currently. Gopperth, Francis and Harrison are all there so some familiar faces. They must fancy pushing on.

They're sitting 3rd & 1 point off second.

Thanks. Clearly my info was out of date or I looked at last year's table or something.

Are Montpellier still bottom of the Top 14?

Jules Plisson has left Clermont to join Aix

Owen Franks has left Toulouse immediately to join up with the Crusaders again.

Blair Kinghorn as left Edinburgh immediately to join Toulouse

How is Plisson 32? He was the next bright young thing five mins ago. I guess playing as second choice behind Belleau at Clermont wasn't what he wanted.

Isn't Aix the Provence team with Gopperth and McPhillips already there as 10 options?

formerly known as Sam wrote:How is Plisson 32? He was the next bright young thing five mins ago. I guess playing as second choice behind Belleau at Clermont wasn't what he wanted.

Isn't Aix the Provence team with Gopperth and McPhillips already there as 10 options?

Yes, indeed. Lots of quality for the second division.

Then again, as someone who has spent a couple of summers in Provence, it's harder to think of a nicer place to live.

Apart from Glasgow, obviously.

Bath apparently favourites to sign RG Snyman for next season. Brilliant player but since joining Munster in May 2020 he's made 10 apps, 4 starts. That's going to be a whole s**t ton of cap space sunk into one player with a bad availability record.

So maybe they will want to offload Cam Redpath?

Salary cap is due to go up from £5m back to £6.4m for next season. Add in the credits for home grown and England players, academy cap and a marquee player outside the cap. Sides such as Bath with a rich owner will be looking at a budget of around £8m for players. So there's going to be plenty of scope for the richer clubs to strengthen squads. I'd still be astonished if the SRU can outspend Bruce Craig.

Money isn't the only thing in the equation though. It might just be that Redpath wants a move away from Bath to experience something else. Bath hasn't been his home for long of course. He grew up in the North West and was from the Sale academy.

RG Snyman to Bath?

Quinn Roux is out of contract for Bath in the summer and has been fairly injury struck. Could be him heading out for Snyman to head in. Given Snyman's miserable injury record he won't be in the top tier of earners.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Quinn Roux is out of contract for Bath in the summer and has been fairly injury struck. Could be him heading out for Snyman to head in. Given Snyman's miserable injury record he won't be in the top tier of earners.

It won't just be Roux who is 33, van Velze is 36 in February who signed an extension for this season only and McNally is also 33. Fergus Lee-Warner has just left to go back to Australia. Elliott Stooke has only signed as injury cover, although that might change. That just leaves Ewels and half a dozen academy locks, hopefully some of whom are rated with good potential. The obvious question with Snyman is can he stay fit but he obviously has close links with van Graan and perhaps has already made his top end money with Munster.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Quinn Roux is out of contract for Bath in the summer and has been fairly injury struck. Could be him heading out for Snyman to head in. Given Snyman's miserable injury record he won't be in the top tier of earners.

450k is the rumour. Reckless spending imo.

LeinsterFan4life wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:Quinn Roux is out of contract for Bath in the summer and has been fairly injury struck. Could be him heading out for Snyman to head in. Given Snyman's miserable injury record he won't be in the top tier of earners.

450k is the rumour. Reckless spending imo.

With his injury record, he will take a contract like that all day long if it is offerred.

That could work out at 100K per game on current rates!

Apparently Stormers are also interested in acquiring Snyman, they have a new partner who are apparently on board with SA rugby to pay him 550K per annum. I probably wouldn’t risk it with him tbh, even though he is a specimen and is class.

Before long I’m sure all players will be in France or Japan. They’ll just outbid everyone.

George North to join Francis in Provence, I think it’s all but confirmed now.

mikey_dragon wrote:Apparently Stormers are also interested in acquiring Snyman, they have a new partner who are apparently on board with SA rugby to pay him 550K per annum. I probably wouldn’t risk it with him tbh, even though he is a specimen and is class.

Before long I’m sure all players will be in France or Japan. They’ll just outbid everyone.

Don't both leagues have limits about the number of foreign or foreign developed players they can bring in? France have the not so simple JEFF system for instance. Stops them just buying up talent, they have to develop it or scout it from around France to a certain extent.

Some rumours around that the South African clubs have sponsors coming onboard that will allow them to bid to bring home some of the talent that's currently overseas.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Apparently Stormers are also interested in acquiring Snyman, they have a new partner who are apparently on board with SA rugby to pay him 550K per annum. I probably wouldn’t risk it with him tbh, even though he is a specimen and is class.

Before long I’m sure all players will be in France or Japan. They’ll just outbid everyone.

Don't both leagues have limits about the number of foreign or foreign developed players they can bring in? France have the not so simple JEFF system for instance. Stops them just buying up talent, they have to develop it or scout it from around France to a certain extent.

Some rumours around that the South African clubs have sponsors coming onboard that will allow them to bid to bring home some of the talent that's currently overseas.

Yeah probably, but I’m not sure the ins and outs. Japan get their players to settle down over there and become qualified, seems to have worked well for them. In addition to that can afford to pay stupid amounts for kiwi’s to go over for a sabbatical.

The French are still buying everyone’s players. Not sure what the limit is. The difference now is that the Pro D2 clubs can also afford to buy top end players. That’s around 28 clubs looking to buy everyone else’s players. It should also be noted, the French clubs are very good at developing their own players, especially the last 5-10 years.

Helpful that they’re buying North, we could no longer afford him. It’s hard to bring down their value when they’ve been at other clubs earning lots of money. I think the WRU are trying to bring down the value of everyone, it’s useful for some so we can hopefully get rid of the semi-pro’s plugging them up, but really you can’t run a pro team on that budget.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Apparently Stormers are also interested in acquiring Snyman, they have a new partner who are apparently on board with SA rugby to pay him 550K per annum. I probably wouldn’t risk it with him tbh, even though he is a specimen and is class.

Before long I’m sure all players will be in France or Japan. They’ll just outbid everyone.

Don't both leagues have limits about the number of foreign or foreign developed players they can bring in? France have the not so simple JEFF system for instance. Stops them just buying up talent, they have to develop it or scout it from around France to a certain extent.

Some rumours around that the South African clubs have sponsors coming onboard that will allow them to bid to bring home some of the talent that's currently overseas.

Not really - the JIFF system which requires players to serve 3-5 years at age grade level has led to Top14 and Pro D2 making adjustments to their recruitment. Just looking at their academy rosters for those 30 French clubs you can see they are already buying overseas players by the droves the last couple of seasons. If you therefore throw in the 14 Non JIFF players that are allowed per club that is a substantial amount of overseas players = 30 Clubs * 14 JIFF spaces = 420 player

It's what I have said previously. Unchecked French club rugby will by itself absorb all of the talent in world rugby. Most will question how long it will take to get there but I think everyone agrees that at some stage it will.

I think Japan will have started to late to really compete with France but still posses a significant problem to Australia & New Zealand.

The only solution to combat this will be to create a wider pool of international teams to share the burden. Its why I think the most logical long term step for URC rugby will to incorporate more nations/clubs to stop total player drain from specific countries.

Welshmushroom wrote:Not really - the JIFF system which requires players to serve 3-5 years at age grade level has led to Top14 and Pro D2 making adjustments to their recruitment.  Just looking at their academy rosters for those 30 French clubs you can see they are already buying overseas players by the droves the last couple of seasons.

It's not even that recent really, French sides were well ahead of the curve signing up tier 2 nation players (all those Romanian/Georgian forwards), and have been scouting young players from smaller European nations for a while now too. Pretty sure the earlier wave(s) of those are already playing first team rugby.

I read on an SA page that Snyman joining Bath and it’s imminent. There’s 9 South Africans at Bath already, two obvious ones in the front row but I wasn’t aware of that.

mikey_dragon wrote:I read on an SA page that Snyman joining Bath and it’s imminent. There’s 9 South Africans at Bath already, two obvious ones in the front row but I wasn’t aware of that.

Outside of the props they are mostly squad players who don't really get into the first choice 23. Well I suppose Shreuder would be the replacement 9. They've got a couple of SA coaches so have probably tapped into their knowledge.

Arundell & Snyman could be both announced by the end of next week as new signings for Bath.

Spencer, Russell, Ojomoh, Redpath Lawrence, Arundell. There are some tasty options in that backline.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Spencer, Russell, Ojomoh, Redpath Lawrence, Arundell. There are some tasty options in that backline.

Could see Arundell focus on the wing with Tom de Granville and Gallagher both decent fullbacks but only Muir and Cokanasiga as real competition on the wings.

In other news Sarries sign Logo Mulipola as injury cover for three months.

Bath always been a bit overhyped. They certainly seem like they are on the right path now, with a good coach and some better players incoming.

Bill Mata - Edinburgh to Bristol

He is on big bucks at Edinburgh and at 32 likely will be looking for one last decent contract. Unlikely that Edinburgh will put up to much of a fight to keep him if someone comes in and offers some silly money.

Mata's quality and he was back nearer top form during the RWC to be fair. But it would be a very Bristol thing if they sign a Fijian Sevens star in a position they're fairly stacked but continue with their second row depth being Chris Vui and Chris Vui's shadow.

With the cap going up and Lansdowne's wallet they could well afford to sign Mata and improve the tight five depth. Previous Lam recruitment would suggest he might get distracted by signing Mata and collecting another centre even though Ravouvou and Williams can't get in the XV already, Piers O'Conor is playing in the back three.

I feel a bit for James Williams. I felt he was one of their top performers last season whilst the team as a whole s**t the bed.

Is Arundell signing an extension with Racing 92?

Bristol apparently interested in Leon Brown - welcome to him. He’s more injured than Ollie Griffiths.

Latest suggestions are that he plans on staying with Racing for another 2 years, which will make him ineligible for England immediately.

If he does not take the Bath/RFU contract, then he does not plsy, even in next years tournament

Jasper Wiese confirmed as leaving Tigers by the club. Usually that means an announcement for the destination is imminent. Stade are favourites to get him for next season. I hope he goes well there. He's been excellent for Tigers, improved a lot as a player and has thrown everything into his time at the club.

It's a massive blow for Tigers but one that's been rumoured for a bit now. The Top 14 are tough to compete with as they go from strength to strength whilst the Prem struggles.

The cap goes up next season and Jasper leaving will clear significant space too. So there's room to recruit. Few are the same quality though. Whilst his ability to make yards through contact against a set defence is up there with the best in the game currently. It's not pretty but turning slow ball into quick ball with one carry over the gain line is pretty useful.