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A hot favourite has emerged in bid to sign Springbok Venter

South Africa’s Francois Venter

According to Rapport, Francois Venter could be the next big name to announce a move to the Aviva Premiership, with Worcester Warriors believed to be leading the chase for his signature.

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There is also interest from France, Ireland and Wales per the report, but Worcester, who will be led by Venter’s current head coach Rory Duncan next season, look set to win out and lure Venter to Sixways.

Worcester may have lost at the weekend but with 12 points separating them from bottom-placed London Irish and just six games remaining in the season, their prospects of avoiding the drop and staying in the Premiership next season look very healthy.

Venter would add to an already strong South African flavour at Worcester, with Alan Solomons in place as director of rugby, and Springboks Francois Hougaard, Wynand Olivier and Dewald Potgieter in the playing squad. There are plenty of uncapped South Africans in the West Midlands, too, with Dean Hammond, GJ van Velze, Nick Schonert, Matt Williams, Simon Kerrod and Gareth Milasinovich also contracted for the Warriors.

In addition, Cornell du Preez and Scott van Breda will be joining next season, having agreed moves from Edinburgh and Jersey Reds respectively.

Should Venter make the move, he would fill the void left by Jackson Willison, with the Kiwi opting to move south to Bath in the offseason, leaving Worcester, who regularly lose Ben Te’o to international duty, light in the midfield.

With Solomons confirming on BT Sport’s coverage of Worcester’s game with London Irish at the weekend that the club had finishing their recruitment in the back-row and that there were no negotiations going on with James Haskell, they may well have the financial flexibility to bring in a player of Venter’s quality.

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J
JW 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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