Newcastle continue recruitment drive with Olympic silver medalist
Newcastle Falcons have made their 14th signing ahead of the new season by bringing in two-cap Wales flanker Sam Cross from the Ospreys.
The 30-year-old will arrive at Kingston Park on a two-year deal and will bring a wealth of experience having played over 50 games for the Ospreys and over 100 games on the international sevens circuit for Wales and Great Britain, winning a silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. A year after his exploits at the Olympics, he earned his two Wales caps against Australia and Georgia in November 2017.
Cross is the latest addition in what has been a seismic summer of change for the Falcons ahead of Alex Codling's first season in charge.
On his move to the Gallagher Premiership, the Welshman said: “I spoke to Alex earlier in the summer about his plans for Newcastle, which really excited me, and when you combine that with what he helped to achieve over at Oyonnax last season I was keen to link up with him.
“The opportunity to play in the Gallagher Premiership was also a big draw because I’ve loved watching it for years, and it’s a great product.
“I like playing on the artificial pitch so that will really suit me, having a quality surface all year round, and I love a fast game.
“I’ll try and run some angles, pick some good lines, look to offload and get the ball to space, and with my sevens background that open-field running is something I’ll look to bring.
“Speaking to the coaches here they want to play a good brand of rugby, and that’s something that is important to me. To have the opportunity to do that up here at Newcastle is a really exciting prospect.”
Codling added: “Sam is a very dynamic back-rower who has played international rugby at both 7s and 15s.
“His explosive ability will very much suit the way we want to play, he’s a great fit for us and he can thrive in a number of positions right across the back row.”
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Don’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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