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Fissler Confidential: Bath target Saracens' England star
By Neil Fissler
Premiership finalists Bath are gearing up for a crack at Saracens and England hooker Theo Dan as they look for a big name to replace Tom Dunn at the end of the forthcoming season.
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Dan, 23, a bronze medalist at the World Cup last year, made 38 appearances and scored ten tries for club and country last season made his debut against Harlequins in the Premiership Rugby Cup in November 2021.
The former Bishop’s Stortford and Ampthill loanee, who has Romanian parents, has been Jamie George’s understudy for Saracens and England and is more than ready to step out of his shadow.
Former England under-20 fly-half James Grayson has signed his two-year deal with Japan League One outfit Mitsubishi Dynaboars as he moves closer to qualifying to play international rugby for Eddie Jones’s side.
Grayson, 25, the son of Saints legend Paul, helped the Dynaboars to their highest-ever league finish and ended his first campaign as the league’s fifth-highest points scorer is keen to play international rugby and won’t rule out Japan.
“I’m never going to shut out the opportunity to play international rugby, whether that be for England or Japan,” Grayson, who is four years away from qualifying for Japan, recently told the BBC.
Dan McKellar is just waiting for the paperwork to be completed on his successful bid to lure Wallabies tight-head Taniela Tupou to Sydney for the final year of his deal with Rugby Australia.
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Former Leicester Tigers boss McKellar has gone all out, working around the clock to convince a very reluctant Tupou, 28, to join his NSW Waratahs revolution and has also got his eye on another former Melbourne Rebel, Isaac Kailea.
Loosehead Kailea, who is set to make his first Wallaby start against Georgia this weekend after two appearances off the replacements bench against Wales, is close to agreeing to move to the Waratahs after speaking to McKellar.
Chelsea Women have set their sights on a move into London Irish’s old training ground, the Hazelwood Centre, which has been largely unused since the Premiership went out of business at the end of last season.
The 63-acre site built on a former golf course in Sunbury on the Thames hosted Wales, Fiji and the All Blacks during the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and then the New York Jets, GAA and Leeds Rhinos.
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The Women’s Super League big guns use the same facilities as their men’s team in Cobham, Surrey, but have been looking to upgrade them for the last couple of seasons after they were branded “not acceptable”.
Former England centre Kyle Eastmond is back in coaching, and he will hope that it lasts longer than his gig at Championship outfit Jersey Reds, who went out of business just before the start of last season.
Eastmond, 35, has been recruited by his former Bath team-mate Sam Burgess to help mentor and act as a skills coach for the younger players at Super League side Warrington Wolves.
Dual code international Eastmond, who spent five years at Bath, also played for Wasps and Leicester Tigers and was only with the Reds for a matter of weeks before they went into administration after funding was withdrawn.
Gloucester have lost England under-18 international back row Solomon Shand, who is seen as one of the leading talents for his age group and is moving to France after agreeing on a deal with Montpellier.
Shand, who came through the ranks at Aylesbury and was educated at Hartpury College, has been part of the England under-18 set-up for the last year and was tipped for a bright future at Kingsholm.
Montpellier have been busy in the academy transfer market after signing another youngster, Georgian lock Nikoloz Chkhortolia, from Top 14 rivals Clermont Auvergne, who will link up with Shand this summer.
Newcastle Falcons boss Steve Diamond is continuing his wheeling and dealing after making Sammy Arnold, who has spent the last two years playing in France with Brive, his 11th new signing of the summer.
Outside centre Arnold, 28, spent sevens in Ireland with Ulster, Munster – where he won his only test cap against the USA in November 2018 – and Connacht. He made 11 appearances for Brive in the Pro D2 last season.
A member of the Brive squad relegated from the Top 14, he can also play at inside centre and on either wing has signed a two-year deal with last season’s Premiership basement dwellers.
Ed Holmes, who was among 17 players to be shown the door by Premiership outfit Bristol Bears at the end of last season, is heading to Japan to play his rugby next season.
Lock Holmes was a member of the Exeter Chiefs side that won the 2018 Anglo-Welsh Cup before joining The Bears initially on a month’s loan the following season and only made six appearances in all competitions last season.
Holmes has become one of six new signings for the ambitious Koto-based Japan League One Division Two newcomers, Shimizu Koto Blue Sharks, who are looking to make a mark in their new division.
Tim Swiel has played in England, Scotland, South Africa and Japan during a long career which started at Western Province 11 years ago and could be about to add the USA to the list of places that he has called home.
The 31-year-old former South African School’s international is now a free agent after being released by former Premiership champions Saracens at the end of last season when his short-term deal ended.
And the whispers are that Swiel has been attracting interest from Major League Rugby outfits and that is where he is most likely to continue his career.
How do Bath cope with the salary cap with all these players they keep buying???