1
100-cap Rob Simmons the latest high profile Wallaby to sign for London Irish
By Chris Jones
London Irish have bolstered their Gallagher Premiership squad with another high profile Wallaby, convincing 100-cap Rob Simmons to join an expanding contingent of Australians at the club. While Sale Sharks have concentrated on bringing in South African power to the Premiership, the Exiles have opted for experienced Wallaby talent.
RugbyPass understands that Simmons is due to arrive in October, following fellow lock Adam Coleman (38 caps), prop Sekope Kepu (110 caps), scrum-half Nick Phipps (72 caps) and centre Curtis Rona (3 caps) to the club which is temporarily based at the Twickenham Stoop while the Brentford Community Stadium is completed.
The 6ft 7in lock has represented Australia in 100 Test matches since making his debut in 2010, bringing up his century of caps against Georgia at last year’s World Cup in Japan. It was his third World Cup having previously featured at the 2011 and 2015 tournaments.
Simmons started his career playing in the Australian Rugby Championship for East Coast Aces, with his Super Rugby debut for Reds coming in 2008.
With over 100 Super Rugby appearances, the 31-year-old moved to Waratahs in 2018. At the time he acknowledged interest from overseas clubs and knew that with more than 60 caps he would still be considered for Wallaby selection if he moved overseas.
He said: “The Wallabies have been a big part of my life for nearly a decade now and I’m hugely proud whenever I get the chance to wear the Wallaby jersey.
"I obviously knew that I had the option to still play for Australia and be based overseas and I had interest from a few clubs, but that just wasn’t what I wanted to do.”
The Irish are also bringing full-back Tom Homer back from Bath, the club he joined from the Exiles in 2015. Homer was a regular for England at U18 and U20 levels and was leading scorer in the Junior World Championships with 118 points. He will be linking up with the Exiles squad shortly.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
All Blacks XV player ratings vs Munster
3
Suaalii strikes awe as Wallabies lose midfielder
4
Scott Robertson responds about handling errors
5
Latest Comments
I think we need to get innovative with the new laws.
Now red cards are only 20 minutes, Razor should send Finau on a head hunting mission to hospitalise their 10 with a shoulder to the chops.
Give the conspiracy theorists a win.
Go to commentsEngland played well enough to win but couldnt score when they needed to and couldnt defend a couple of X-Factor moments from Telea which was ultimately the difference. They needed to hold the ball more and make the AB's make more tackles. Territorially they were good for the first 60. Defending their lead and playing pragmatic rugby in the last 20 was silly. The AB's always had the potential to come back. England still have a long way to go, definite progress would have been shown had they won but it seems they are still stuck where they were shortly after the six nations and their tour to NZ
Go to comments