Billy Vunipola turned down Super Rugby deal for France
Billy Vunipola has turned down a move to Australia to join French outfit Montpellier on a two-year deal when his contract with Premiership champions Saracens runs out at the end of the season.
RugbyPass understands that an Australian Super Rugby Pacific outfit made a late bid to snatch the 31-year-old No.8, who was born in Sydney, from under the noses of Montpellier, but the deal was already agreed.
Vunipola, who is closing in 200 appearances for Saracens after from Wasps in 2013, has won three European Cup crowns and four Premiership titles during his stay with the North London side.
A World Cup finalist in 2019, Vunipola was a member of Steve Borthwick’s squad in France earlier this season but found himself out in the cold for the Six Nations.
The move to France ends his England career after winning 73 caps, and he will join his Saracens team-mate Owen Farrell in playing in the Top 14 next season.
Vunipola was also offered a deal to stay with Saracens for another season but has decided to end his stay and will be moving to Montpellier, who already have former Exeter Chiefs and England international Sam Simmonds on their books.
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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