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South African franchise willing to drop 20 players to capture All Blacks legend

Julian Savea. (Photo by Henry Browne/Getty Images for Barbarians RFC)

Battling South African side the Southern Kings are reportedly in the hunt for the signature of Toulon wing and ex-All Blacks star Julian Savea as they look to improve their results in the European Pro14.

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The unexpected transfer proposal, which was reported by Afrikaans outlet Rapport, comes in the wake of a poor run of form from Savea for the French club, which has led to intense public criticism from club owner Mourad Boudjellal and Toulon fans.

Savea has endured a tumultuous stay in the south of France since joining Toulon last year, with Boudjellal telling RMC in February that he would “ask for a DNA test” after a string of underwhelming performances from the 28-year-old, who scored 46 tries in 54 tests for the All Blacks.

“They must have swapped him on the plane [when he joined from the Hurricanes last year]. If I were him I would apologise and go back to my home country,” Boudjellal said.

“I’ve told him that he was free to go and wasn’t welcome at Toulon any more.”

While Savea took the criticism in his stride, both he, his wife, Fatima, and daughter Jude have since been the target of online abuse from Toulon fans, with Fatima publicly fearing for the wellbeing of her family.

“Who would have thought that I’d feel like my life and my daughter’s life might be at risk going back to Toulon with the amount of threats and hateful messages I have received from angry fans,” she wrote on Twitter.

After a five-week spell on the sideline following an axing from the side after a 19-10 loss to Agen on February 17, Savea returned to the team as a second-five in Toulon’s 42-33 loss to Lyon last month.

Joining Savea on the Kings’ wish list is former Springboks forward Jacques Potgieter, who played for the Eastern Province side in the Currie Cup between 2009 and 2011.

Potgieter, who also plays for Toulon, has been struggling for game time since his arrival from the Munakata Sanix Blues in the Japanese Top League during the off-season.

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It is understood negotiations between the Kings and Toulon for the duo have been underway since the start of the weekend, around the same time of the announcement of an historic partnership between the two clubs, with a massive turnover of players expected to ensue should the transfers ensue.

According to Rapport, the Kings would have to release at least 20 contracted players to make room for both Savea and Potgieter financially, with Savea alone earning around NZ$1.65 million per season on a two-year deal in France.

Securing the services of either player would be a significant statement of intent from the Kings under new high-performance director Robbie Kempson, as the club have won just three matches from 40 outings since joining the Pro14 from Super Rugby after getting booted from the southern hemisphere competition at the end of the 2017 season.

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Under the newly-formed partnership, the Kings and Toulon will be allowed to share resources, youth academy facilities, an exchange programme for coaches and players, venture into joint commercial opportunities, and play fixtures between each other.

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The partnership comes just after a month after a group called The Greatest Rugby Company in the Whole Wide World (Pty) Ltd (GRC) purchased a 74 percent shareholding from South African Rugby to take majority ownership of the Kings, making the Port Elizabeth-based franchise South Africa’s first privately-owned professional side.

The Eastern Province Rugby Union acquired the remaining 26 percent of shares.

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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?

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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.

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