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Fissler Confidential: Jonny May's next club and Bok forced to retire

Jonny May of England celebrates scoring during the Summer International match between England and Fiji at Twickenham Stadium on August 26, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)

Former England winger Jonny May, who was announced this week as leaving Gloucester, is waiting to see which Pro D2 side gets promoted. This could spark another flood of players leaving the Gallagher Premiership for France this summer.

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News is reaching Fissler Confidential Towers that May is one of several players released by Premiership clubs who are waiting to see which clubs are promoted to the French top flight next season.

Provence finished top of the Pro D2 table with Vannes second. Beziers and Grenoble will host Brive and Dax in the opening round of the play-offs before the top two get involved, with only the champions guaranteed to be promoted. The losing finalist will play off with the second-from-bottom Top 14 side.

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Premiership champions Saracens are in talks with Montauban coach Florent Wieczorek about moving to North London as their scrum coach when he leaves the Pro D2 strugglers this summer.

It has been reported in France that Wieczorek, recognised in France for his technical expertise, is in advanced talks about joining Mark McCall’s coaching staff when Sarries report back for pre-season.

Ian Peel, the Saracens scrum guru, was a long-term target for England coach Steve Borthwick, but he appointed Tom Harrison from his former club Leicester Tigers to replace Richard Cockerill last June.

Sale Sharks are set to formally announce that they have re-signed Will Addison after it was revealed he was one of nine players leaving United Rugby Championship outfit Ulster at the end of the season.

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Irish-qualified Addison, 31, who left the Sharks in 2018 to move to Belfast, has made 15 of his 42 appearances this season after overcoming a series of serious injury problems that had threatened his career.

Fissler Confidential understands that Addison, who can play outside centre, full-back, and wing and has won five Ireland caps, has agreed to an initial one-year deal with the Sharks.

Former Sale tighthead Coenie Oosthuizen could be forced into retirement because of a serious neck injury, according to the latest reports in South Africa.

The 35-year-old ex-Springboks front-rower, who also plays loosehead, has made 12 appearances for the Durban-based Sharks this season but hasn’t played since a URC defeat against the Lions in March.

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Oosthuizen, who made 94 appearances in a four-year stint in the Premiership for Manchester-based Sale before leaving last summer and signing for the Durban outfit, has a history of neck problems which started with an injury in 2012.

Steve Diamond is set to return to Sale for a second time in a matter of weeks as he looks to strengthen his Premiership basement-dwelling Newcastle Falcons team for next season.

Diamond recently announced that he is linking up again with flanker Cam Neild, who only returned to the Sharks in February after being left without a club after stints with Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Sharks outside centre Connor Doherty, who has played seven times this season, has now agreed to spend next season on loan at Kingston Park.

Exeter Chiefs are set to announce that former Sale lock Matt Postlethwaite will leave the club when his contract runs out at the end of the season.

Postlethwaite, 27, has only made limited appearances this season. He was an unused replacement against Glasgow Warriors in the Champions Cup, while he played three Premiership Cup games at the start of the campaign.

Welsh hooker Iestyn Harris, who had a spell on loan in the Championship with Cornish Pirates this season, will also leave as Rob Baxter seeks to have a much leaner squad at the club next season.

Exeter are set to hold off a bid from URC outfit Scarlets to keep Irish lock Jack Dunne at Sandy Park when his contract with the Premiership side runs out at the end of the season.

It was widely anticipated that former Leinster ace Dunne, 25, who has made 12 appearances for the Chiefs this season, would be joining his teammate loosehead Alec Hepburn in Wales.

RugbyPass understands that Dunne did travel to the Scarlets for talks but never sorted out a move. He is now set to commit himself to the Chiefs, where he has been playing since leaving Ireland in 2022.

Steve Lansdown, who became the Bristol Bears owner when the club was in major turmoil over a decade ago, is set to be named the joint-150th person in Britain when the Sunday Times Rich list is revealed.

According to the list, the Bristol-born 71-year-old, who also owns Championship football side Bristol City, co-founded the financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown from a bedroom in 1981 and now is worth £1.168bn.

Donald MacKenzie, one of CVC Capital Partners’ co-founders who owns stakes in the Premiership, URC, and the Guinness Six Nations, has a seven per cent stake in the firm worth £760m.

Waratahs scrum-half Jake Gordon has left the door open for a move to France in 12 months after Rugby Australia blocked his move to Top 14 outfit Perpignan.

The 30-year-old Wallaby international was wanted by Perpignan, but Rugby Australia insisted that he see out the final 12 months of his agreement. He diplomatically agreed that was “the right thing to do.”

“It’s not happening. What they said to me is basically, I need to honour my contract here. I’m staying here for the next 12 months, and I’m excited for that challenge too,” said Gordon, who joined the Tahs in 2017.

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finn 171 days ago

what’s happening to Ian Peel?

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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