Wednesday’s rugby news has Cooper heading overseas, Pulver laying down the law, an NFL convert coming to Super Rugby and Brussow out for the season.
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Cooper to join Toulon
Quade Cooper has agreed to leave Australia and join Toulon next season. According to French reports, the Wallabies and Reds fly-half has signed a two-year deal with the reigning European Champions with an option for a third season. Cooper has suffered recurrent shoulder injuries this season, leading to a disappointing game-and-a-half of total playing time for the struggling Reds.
Despite these recent injuries, Cooper was still an attractive prospect for European and Japanese clubs, with the 27-year-old drawn to a visit to France this week with his manager Khoder Nasser. The signing is more bad news for the Reds, who will now be without figureheads James Horwill, Will Genia and Cooper for next season.
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Wallabies or Rio, says Pulver
While the ARU’s has initiated the policy of allowing flexible contracts, Bill Pulver has emphasized that high-profile players will not be allowed to compete for both the Wallabies and the Australian Sevens team in 2016. Pulver says the likes of Foley and Folau need to choose, saying, “there’s really no compromise. If you want to go to the Olympics, you have to be prepared to walk away from the entire 15-man season.”
Pulver also revealed on Tuesday that the ARU will issue a very limited number of flexible contracts, with five players at the most afforded the luxury. With Foley the first recipient and Israel Folau likely to be next, the ARU will be looking to keep other off-contract stars such as Kurtley Beale and James Slipper through the new contracts.
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NFL player heading to ACT
The ACT Brumbies have invited former Houston Texans tight end Chris Coyle to spend three months training and playing with the team. Stephen Larkham recently set up a partnership with Arizona State University, where Coyle was a star football graduate, when visiting the United States last year.
Manager of the Brumbies academy program Nick Leah believes Super Rugby will see a massive growth in American players throughout the next decade, although he conceded that an NFL player would need significant time to physically adapt to the requirements of rugby. “The reality is, physiologically it’s going to take him two years to adapt,” Leah said. “Each play in the NFL lasts a maximum of seven seconds. He’s now got to generate that power over 80 minutes.”
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Brussow out for the season
Cheetahs flanker Heinrich Brussow will likely miss the rest of the Super Rugby season with a broken arm. Brussow broke his forearm early in the Cheetahs’ 18-17 loss to the Reds on Saturday and had surgery on Sunday. The Cheetahs say he’s out for approximately three months.
In their injury report on Monday, the Bloemfontein-based Cheetahs also say Springboks fullback Willie le Roux will be rested for five weeks with an ankle ligament problem. Two other injured Springboks internationals, flanker Oupa Mohoje and lock Lood de Jager, will be sidelined for another month.
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