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Ollie Lawrence on Harlequins' radar if Andre Esterhuizen heads home
By Neil Fissler
Harlequins could look no further than England international Ollie Lawrence should they need to replace Springboks Rugby World Cup winner Andre Esterhuizen this summer. The Sharks would like to buy Esterhuizen out of the last year of his contract at The Stoop, but the London club are demanding a £500,000 transfer fee before allowing him to leave.
Esterhuizen left the Durban-based URC side to move to the English capital four years ago, but they want him back to replace Rohan Janse van Rensburg, who has linked up with immediate effect with Yokohama Canon Eagles as injury cover for Jesse Kriel ahead of a switch to Bordeaux-Begles for the 2024/25 season in France.
If Esterhuizen moves home, Harlequins could buy the 24-year-old Lawrence out of the final year of the Bath contract he signed when moving to The Rec in October 2022 after Worcester Warriors went out of business just months after winning the Premiership Rugby Cup.
The outside centre, who originally joined Bath as a short-term injury dispensation cover, has been sensational for the West Country club, winning the Gallagher Premiership player of the season award last May.
He was also named Premiership player of the month for December, making an instant impact when he returned from France after helping England to finish third in the World Cup.
Lawrence, who has scored five tries in eight 2023/24 games with Bath, is this week set to return to England training ahead of the Guinness Six Nations round three trip to face Scotland at Murrayfield on February 24.
He suffered a hip injury playing for Bath in January against Toulouse in the Investec Champions Cup and missed the recent Test wins over Italy and Wales. His return to training will be a massive boost for England boss Steve Borthwick.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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