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New club finally revealed for Springbok Jasper Wiese
By Josh Raisey
South Africa No8 Jasper Wiese is set to join Japan Rugby League One's Urayasu D-Rocks next season, putting an end to months of speculation.
The 28-year-old's Leicester Tigers departure at the end of the season was announced in December, with many predicting a move to Japan.
Wiese will join fellow Springbok Johan Ackermann at the club, who recently promoted the side to division one next season.
The World Cup winner is currently part of the South Africa squad that will take on Ireland over the next two weeks, although he is ineligible to play due to the red card he received in his final Leicester outing in May.
Urayasu D-Rocks announced five signings ahead of next season, with Japan forwards Uwe Helu and Hendrick Tui also signing deals alongside lock Zephania Tuinona and versatile back Luteru Laulala.
"I am very excited to be a member of the Urayasu D-Rocks," Wiese said after his move was announced.
"I am looking forward to being a part of the D-Rocks and will play my best in every game to help the team win."
Urayasu D-Rocks wrote on their website: "He made a major contribution to South Africa's second consecutive victory in the Rugby World Cup in 2023.
"He was included in the South African national squad announced recently, and is expected to become one of the key players for the South African national team in the future .
"He was also a member of the Best XV in last season's Premiership . He is particularly strong at carrying the ball, and was ranked number one in the Premiership . We hope you will look forward to seeing him demonstrate his skills on the Division 1 stage."
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Latest Comments
"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"
I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.
But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.
Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.
"I'm afraid to say"
Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!
Go to commentsYou are a very horrible man Ojohn. Brain injury perhaps?
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