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Gloucester sign trio of Worcester Warriors
By PA
Gallagher Premiership club Gloucester have signed three players from crisis-hit Worcester.
Centres Alex Searle and Seb Atkinson, together with hooker Finn Theobald-Thomas, have become the latest trio to leave the Warriors.
Gloucester said they linked up with the squad on Monday.
Worcester are currently in administration, while they were partially liquidated with HM Revenue and Customs pursuing unpaid tax in the region of £6million.
Worcester were suspended from the Premiership and face relegation at the end of this season.
A number of players have departed Sixways, including Scotland wing Duhan van der Merwe, England centre Ollie Lawrence, club captain Ted Hill, fly-half Fin Smith, plus locks Joe Batley and Andrew Kitchener.
Hearle spent six years at Worcester, while Atkinson links up with Gloucester following a two-season stint in the west midlands and 19-year-old Theobald-Thomas is a Warriors academy product.
“The opportunity arose to explore bringing in further additions to our squad, and we are really pleased to welcome Alex, Seb and Finn,” Gloucester chief operating officer Alex Brown said.
“They are three young players who have a very bright future in the game, and we are confident that they will add another layer of depth to our squad.
“Alex really kicked on last season to establish himself as a regular Premiership player. He has got a well-rounded game and is a natural finisher.
“Seb and Finn are both players who were beginning to make an impact for the Warriors.”
In their latest statement, Worcester’s administrators Begbies Traynor said that discussions were continuing with a number of interested parties.
“We are not yet at a stage to be able to enter into any preferred bidder agreement, but expect to continue discussions around this with a view to achieving a sale in the timescale needed for a squad to be built by a purchaser in good time for next season,” Begbies Traynor said.
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Another solution would be to move the schedule a week later - there’s a month long break before the Rugby Championship so why would the NZRU schedule the first game in conflict with a major club final?
Once you remove the scheduling issue - it becomes purely about player welfare and that’s the French unions issue to deal with. The whole idea of becoming the best team is moot if you cede all your national power to a club competition.
Go to commentsExactly, Moana is entirely a NZ side and it the second Auckland franchise. Its the only side in the world that's been setup for the alleged purpose of developing players for two other ‘countries’ from playing talent from another country.
In reality it's best players are always going to be picked for the Allblacks as they're eligible kiwis. That's never going to change so the best thing to do is stop the pretence and make the team just another NZ super franchise that isn't ethnically based to allow talent equal access to professional contracts regardless of their ethnicity.
Commentaries claiming players from this team need to be ignored by the Allblacks selectors are of course advocating for the ridiculous situation that NZ becomes the only rugby country that overlooks players born and living in that country with that countries citizenship.
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