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Reports: Wallabies star set for early exit from club, will skip Super Rugby AU

By Online Editors
Bernard Foley and Kurtley Beale at the Waratahs. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Wallabies fullback Kurtley Beale is set to make an early exit from the Waratahs before he begins his career with the Racing 92 club in France later this year.

Beale signed a two-year deal with Racing 92 earlier this year and was expected to finish out his remaining 2020 duties with the Waratahs but reports from the Sydney Morning Herald suggest that Beale won't take any part in the upcoming Super Rugby AU replacement competition.

The 31-year-old has reportedly negotiated an early exit with Rugby Australia (RA) so that he can freshen up ahead of the 2020-21 Top 14 season.

The Western Force have brought two former Wallabies into their midst.

Beale was absent from Waratahs training on Friday, supposedly due to exhibiting flu-like symptoms, but the 92-cap Wallaby was spotted at at a boat party organised by former Wallabies coach Alan Jones.

Herald sources suggested that there was no animosity between Beale and RA with an announcement due to be made in the coming week.

“It’s going to be fun and a new chapter for me with my fiancee,” Beale told former Wallabies centurion David Campese regarding his upcoming move to Europe. “It’s important to make sure now we’re giving everything to the Tahs and I still haven’t retired from international rugby, so I’m going to put my hand up 100 per cent. I’m only 31. I still think I have a lot to give to the game.”

While Beale won't be representing the Waratahs for the rest of the year, he is still able to be selected in the national set-up moving forward due to having accrued more than 60 caps over his Wallabies career to date.

A call-up to Dave Rennie's Wallabies squad seems unlikely at present, however, with the utility back missing out on selection in the new coach of Australia's squad of national interest earlier this year.

Beale first debuted for the Waratahs in 2007 and has since played 162 Super Rugby matches, including 14 for the Melbourne Rebels. Beale started at inside centre in the Waratahs' 2014 title-winning final against the Crusaders.