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Six players at London Irish agree new deals
By Sam Smith
Six players have committed their immediate futures to London Irish as the club confirmed their first round of contract renewals.
Ben Atkins, Jack Cooke, James Stokes, Jacob Atkins, Isaac Curtis-Harris and Ireland qualified scrumhalf Caolan Englefield have all penned new deals with the Exiles.
Curtis-Harris, who joined the Club’s senior Academy during the 2016/17 campaign, has also put pen to paper to extend his stay with the Exiles. To date, Curtis-Harris has made 20 appearances in all competitions for Irish.
Cooke came through the London Irish Academy system and has gone on to make 26 appearances for the Exiles so far. The back row, who once ran out at the Madejski Stadium as a mascot holding the then captain Bob Casey’s hand, skippered the Exiles for the first time in the 2019/20 season.
Full-back James Stokes has made 27 appearances for the Exiles in his first two seasons with the Club. Stokes has been in good form this season, scoring a brace of tries against Pau in the European Rugby Challenge Cup, showing his versatility in the backline having played at full-back, wing and in the centres during the 2020/21 campaign.
23-year-old fly-half Jacob Atkins, who joined the London Irish Academy by virtue of coming through the AASE programme at the start of the 2016/17 season, featured in both the Gallagher Premiership and European Challenge Cup during this season’s campaign and has made 40 appearances for the Club in all competitions.
Ben Atkins, who graduated through the AASE programme and has represented England at both U19 and U20 level, has made seven appearances in the front row for the Exiles to date.
Scrum-half Caolan Englefield, an Irish U19 international, meanwhile, has appeared on six occasions, with two of those arriving in the 2020/21 season.
London Irish finished ninth in this season Gallagher Premiership, their second consecutive season since being promoted at the end of the 2018/19 RFU Championship season.
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Latest Comments
I read some of the online comments on this and their were thoughtless and veering to misogyny.
As well as the pay gap women tend to recover quickly from the emotional intensity of matches. The match is over they shake hands and they can get quickly over a loss. THis doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
Many men tend to view rugby as a test of manhood. They are aggressive, and take a big loss about as well as they would take a castration.
To judge women against men in this way is obviously stupid. The Welsh team are trying to promote publicity for the sport as well as trying to win matches. Suling for months wont attract girls to the support, no matter how much men online demand a period of self flagellation.
Go to comments“bring in a double bonus point instead” I don't think this is a great idea. We need the premiership to be a breeding ground for test match players. If we try to turn it into a defense optional try fest, we're going to come unstuck. It's not like teams really need an incentive to score more tries once they get to 4 tries.
England will no doubt benefit from more highly skilled attacking players (assuming they allow them to play with some autonomy) but test matches are rarely high scoring affairs. It's good that our players are becoming more skilled, we've long played second fiddle in those stakes to the SH (and still do) but the players also need to learn how to grind out gnarly wins. The Premiership is already a very high scoring league, we don't need to push it any further.
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