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Reports in France claim Brookes signed by Toulon, du Preez also on their radar
By Online Editors
Wasps prop Kieran Brookes is set to the quit the Gallagher Premiership five years after he made the last of his 16 appearances for England. The tighthead was a regular off the bench when Stuart Lancaster was in charge of the English set-up.
However, just one of his caps since the post-2015 World Cup departure of Lancaster have come under current boss Eddie Jones and Midi Olympique have now reported that Brookes will join Toulon in the Top 14 next season from Wasps.
The much-experienced 30-year-old has done the rounds in the Premiership this past decade, playing for Newcastle, Leicester and Northampton before joining Wasps in 2018 where he enjoyed a renaissance in the club's run to the final of the 2019/20 league in England.
That campaign ultimately has a cruel twist for the prop - having played in 18 of their 23 games to reach the decider, he was ruled out following a Covid outbreak at the club in the run-up to the showpiece fixture versus Exeter at Twickenham.
"I was absolutely gutted," said Brookes in a recent interview with the Daily Mail. "I was distraught. It would have been my first final. I tested negative but my housemate tested positive and through contact tracing, I had to go into isolation. She’s a physio at the club, so she was devastated to miss the final as well.’"
With the busy transfer negotiation season building up a new-year head of steam in France, Brookes isn't the only player in England to be in the sights of Toulon as Midi also report that the club are interested in securing the signature of Worcester back row Cornell du Preez.
The soon-to-be 30-year-old South African has nine caps for Scotland since making a 2017 Six Nations debut against England at Twickenham. He spent five seasons with Edinburgh before taking up the challenge of playing in the Premiership.
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Latest Comments
Warren, if you think you should stay on coaching Wales, you are beyond deluded. If you love Wales & Welsh rugby as much as you say you do (& I'm sure you probably do) you should resign immediately so this once proud & passionate rugby nation can rebuild without you. How many of your players will make the British & Irish Lions squad.?
It's time to walk the plank.!
Go to commentsYeah nar I pretty much agree with that sentiment, wasn't just about the lineout though.
Yeah, I think it's the future of SR, even TRC. Graham above just now posting about how good a night it was with a dbl header of ENGvSA and NZvFrance, and now I don't want to kick SA or Argentina out of TRC but it would be great if in this next of the woods 2 more top teams could come in to create more of these sort of nights (for rugby's appeal). Often Arg and SA and both travel here and you get those games but more often doesn't work out right.
Obviously a long way off but USA and Japan are the obvious two. First thing we need to do is get Eddie Jones kicked out of Japan so they can start improving again and then get a couple of US teams in SRP (even if one its just a US based and augmented Jaguares).
It will start off the whole conferences are crap debate again (which I will continue to argue vehemently against), but imagine a 6 team Pacific conference, Tokyo Sunwolves (drafted from Tokyo JRLO teams), Tokyo All Stars (made up of best remaining foreign players and overseas drafts), ALL Nihon (best of local non Tokyo based talent, inc China/Korea etc, with mainland Japan), a could of West Coast american franchises and perhaps a second self PI driven Hawai'i based team, or Jagaures. So I see a short NFL like 3 or 4 month comp as fitting best, maybe not even a full round, NZvAUSvPAC, all games taking place within a 6hr window. Model for NZ will definitely still require a competitive and funded NPC!
On the Crusaders, I liked last years ending with Grace on the bench (ovbiously form dependent but thats how it ended) and Lio-Willie at 8. I could have Blackadder trying to be a 7 but think balance will be used with him at 6 and Kellow as 7. Scott Barrett is an international 6 sized player. It is just NZ style/model that pushes him into the tight, I reckon he'd be a great loose player, and saders have Strange and Cahill as bigger players (plus that change could draw someone like Darry back). Same with Haig now, hes not grown yet but Barrett hight and been playing 6, now that the Highlanders have only chosen two locks he'll be playing lock, and that is going to change his growth trajectory massively, rather than seeing him grow like an International 6.
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