The wait is over -World Cup winning Springbok Jaque Fourie, Olympic gold medallist Ma

Nick Taylor | The West Australian
Monday, 5 March 2018 9:00PM


World Cup winning Springbok star centre Jaque Fourie has been lured out of retirement to join the reborn Western Force.
And the club has snared Olympic gold medallist Masivesi Dakuwaqa who was a member of Fiji's 2016 sevens world beating side.
He has returned to union after a spell in the rival code with Canberra Raiders in the National Rugby League.
Fourie, the 2007 World Cup winner with 72 South African caps played with Japanese club Kobelco Steelers last year, and winger Dakuwaqa, are two of an initial 26-man squad signed for the 2018 season.
Ten former Force players are in the squad including another ex-Springbok Peter Grant, US international outside back Marcel Brache, flankers Chris Alcock and Brynard Stander, scrum-halves Ian Prior and Ryan Louwrens, props Kieran Longbottom and Chris Heiberg, hooker Harry Scoble and outside back Brad Lacey.
Future Force Foundation and Perth Spirit winger Clay Uyen, who trained with the Force last year, has also been signed.
Other signings include full-back Rod ‘Rocket’ Davies who began his career in league with the Brisbane Broncos before switching codes to play for the Queensland Reds and more recently Biarritz and Mitsubishi DynaBoars.
Australian junior world cup prop Cameron Orr Prop returns home from English heavyweight Gloucester with his second-rower brother Harrison who is with Newcastle.
Former Waratahs fly-half Andrew Deegan has been playing with one of Ireland's top clubs Connaught while Italian international second-rower Josh Furno has signed from French rugby after playing for Otago.
A number of Pacific Island players are on the radar as are more Australian players currently playing overseas for the final 35-man squad.
The Force went through a worldwide search for the squad that will initially play international sides like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga and Super clubs like the Crusaders and Brumbies.
They will then play in the National Rugby Championship that starts in September with a series of matches to announced tomorrow before switching to the Indo Pacific Rugby Championship that is planned to kick-off in March next year.

Squad and more details here
https://thewest.com.au/sport/western...-ng-b88764422z

Kankowski still in the pipeline?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wholetruth

Nick Taylor | The West Australian
Monday, 5 March 2018 9:00PM


World Cup winning Springbok star centre Jaque Fourie has been lured out of retirement to join the reborn Western Force.
And the club has snared Olympic gold medallist Masivesi Dakuwaqa who was a member of Fiji's 2016 sevens world beating side.
He has returned to union after a spell in the rival code with Canberra Raiders in the National Rugby League.
Fourie, the 2007 World Cup winner with 72 South African caps played with Japanese club Kobelco Steelers last year, and winger Dakuwaqa, are two of an initial 26-man squad signed for the 2018 season.
Ten former Force players are in the squad including another ex-Springbok Peter Grant, US international outside back Marcel Brache, flankers Chris Alcock and Brynard Stander, scrum-halves Ian Prior and Ryan Louwrens, props Kieran Longbottom and Chris Heiberg, hooker Harry Scoble and outside back Brad Lacey.
Future Force Foundation and Perth Spirit winger Clay Uyen, who trained with the Force last year, has also been signed.
Other signings include full-back Rod ‘Rocket’ Davies who began his career in league with the Brisbane Broncos before switching codes to play for the Queensland Reds and more recently Biarritz and Mitsubishi DynaBoars.
Australian junior world cup prop Cameron Orr Prop returns home from English heavyweight Gloucester with his second-rower brother Harrison who is with Newcastle.
Former Waratahs fly-half Andrew Deegan has been playing with one of Ireland's top clubs Connaught while Italian international second-rower Josh Furno has signed from French rugby after playing for Otago.
A number of Pacific Island players are on the radar as are more Australian players currently playing overseas for the final 35-man squad.
The Force went through a worldwide search for the squad that will initially play international sides like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga and Super clubs like the Crusaders and Brumbies.
They will then play in the National Rugby Championship that starts in September with a series of matches to announced tomorrow before switching to the Indo Pacific Rugby Championship that is planned to kick-off in March next year.

Squad and more details here
https://thewest.com.au/sport/western...-ng-b88764422z

---

Wow!Wow!Wow!:yeah::yeah::yeah:

We're going to have to defend this team for all the East Coast wingers who will call it an international barbarians team.

I'd be quite happy to say fuckem

Deegan was one I am surprised at. There was talk of him leaving Connacht as they do tend to release players who are on contract but keep them around to play club Rugby just for extra depth.

Great to see a well deserved call up for clay uyen as well

This has been a good day, a fantastic squad and New Jersey, logo etc.

They have brought players back from Europe like they said they would and keeping lots of the force boys together.

If they confirm all these trial matches that will be great, followed by the NRC.

My only concern left is the quality of the IPRC opposition so hopefully those players are being recruited but kept quiet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wholetruth

Nick Taylor | The West Australian
Monday, 5 March 2018 9:00PM


World Cup winning Springbok star centre Jaque Fourie has been lured out of retirement to join the reborn Western Force.
And the club has snared Olympic gold medallist Masivesi Dakuwaqa who was a member of Fiji's 2016 sevens world beating side.
He has returned to union after a spell in the rival code with Canberra Raiders in the National Rugby League.
Fourie, the 2007 World Cup winner with 72 South African caps played with Japanese club Kobelco Steelers last year, and winger Dakuwaqa, are two of an initial 26-man squad signed for the 2018 season.
Ten former Force players are in the squad including another ex-Springbok Peter Grant, US international outside back Marcel Brache, flankers Chris Alcock and Brynard Stander, scrum-halves Ian Prior and Ryan Louwrens, props Kieran Longbottom and Chris Heiberg, hooker Harry Scoble and outside back Brad Lacey.
Future Force Foundation and Perth Spirit winger Clay Uyen, who trained with the Force last year, has also been signed.
Other signings include full-back Rod ‘Rocket’ Davies who began his career in league with the Brisbane Broncos before switching codes to play for the Queensland Reds and more recently Biarritz and Mitsubishi DynaBoars.
Australian junior world cup prop Cameron Orr Prop returns home from English heavyweight Gloucester with his second-rower brother Harrison who is with Newcastle.
Former Waratahs fly-half Andrew Deegan has been playing with one of Ireland's top clubs Connaught while Italian international second-rower Josh Furno has signed from French rugby after playing for Otago.
A number of Pacific Island players are on the radar as are more Australian players currently playing overseas for the final 35-man squad.
The Force went through a worldwide search for the squad that will initially play international sides like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga and Super clubs like the Crusaders and Brumbies.
They will then play in the National Rugby Championship that starts in September with a series of matches to announced tomorrow before switching to the Indo Pacific Rugby Championship that is planned to kick-off in March next year.

Squad and more details here
https://thewest.com.au/sport/western...-ng-b88764422z

---

I wondered whether Chris Heiberg was back in town to play for the Force, I've been training at the gym at the same time as him for the last month. Was surprised to see him the first time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bakkies

Kankowski still in the pipeline?

---

Think I saw something that said Hodgo had opted for a Perth Spirit player instead (Tevin Ferris)

No room for pek or heath t?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wallabydarnd

No room for pek or heath t?

---

Unless they have retired from pro Rugby you would think they will be added amongst the 9 remaining squad places.

Crikey!

Cott will be strong this season!

Wayne Smith seems to have less names in his squad than Nick Taylor does

Rod Davies rockets back to Australia to join new Force
Former Reds winger Rod Davies has returned to Australia to play for the Western Force. Picture: Darren England
Former Reds winger Rod Davies has returned to Australia to play for the Western Force. Picture: Darren England
The Australian12:00AM March 6, 2018
Save
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on email
Share more...
WAYNE SMITH
Senior sport writerBrisbane
@WayneKeithSmith

Former Wallabies winger and Queensland Reds folk hero Rod Davies has returned to Australia from playing in Europe and Japan to headline the new Western Force squad to play a number of high-quality warm-up matches before heading into the National Rugby Championship.

The 23-man squad, to be released today in Perth by WA mining billionaire Andrew Forrest and former Wallabies captain Michael Lynagh, is expected to play matches against Crusaders and Brumbies during the June Test window as well as matches against the three Pacific island nations of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga before the NRC begins in September.

Davies is one of two internationals in the side, with South African World Cup-winning centre Jaque Fourie coming out of retirement at the age of 35 to run the Force backline.

At the age of only 28, however, Davies has both the electric speed and footballing nous to challenge again for the Wallabies. He played his only Test, against Samoa in Sydney, one week after figuring in Queensland’s 2011 Super Rugby grand final win over the Crusaders and had the utter misfortune to be marking the rampaging Alesana Tuilagi, who rode roughshod over him in Samoa’s upset 32-23 win.

But in 58 games for the Reds, Davies was a consistent tryscorer, particularly combining with Quade Cooper to break the line on the inside ball, and while it was understandable that Wallabies coach Robbie Deans did not persevere with him beyond the Samoa game, it was always felt he should have played more Tests.

Now that he has returned, after 58 outings for Biarritz in the French Top 14 and a further six for the Mitsubishi DynaBoars in the Japanese Top League that becomes a possibility.

“I’ve watched him in training and he’s got the same speed he’s always had,” said Matt Hodgson, the head of elite performances for Forrest’s Indo Pacific Rugby Championship. “I could see him playing for Australia, as indeed could Chris Alcock who I’ve always seen as one of the best backrowers in Super Rugby.”

In one form or another, Alcock has constantly run up against the two dominant openside flankers of Australian rugby over the last 10 years, David Pocock and Michael Hooper, but in stints at the Waratahs, the Western Force and the Brumbies he demonstrated that he could easily have stepped up to Test football. And while both of those players would still rank ahead of him this year, the 29-year-old might still figure in Michael Cheika’s reckoning now that Rugby Australia has guaranteed that Force players can be considered for the Wallabies.


The Force recruiting is not yet complete with Hodgson alluding to some still-to-be-signed but apparently exciting names to be added, but he could well have had three internationals in the squad — had he just signed himself.

“Yeah, I did think of it,” said the 36-year-old Wallabies flanker, the Force’s last Super Rugby captain, leading them to six victories last season.

“But I made sure I filled up the backrow positions as quickly as possible to avoid the temptation.”

Hodgson did have preliminary discussions with dynamic Springbok No 8 Ryan Kankowski but in the end he preferred to give the chance instead to Perth Spirit backrower Tevin Ferris, one of the stars of the 2017 NRC program. Inexplicably, he was not picked up by any of the Super Rugby clubs, allowing Hodgson to swoop.

“A bit of work in the gym and he could end up the size of Wycliff Palu,” said Hodgson, invoking the name of one of the great Wallabies number eights of this century.

The Force have shored up their scrum with prop Kieren Longbottom, who was on the brink of Wallabies selection before heading over to Britain to play for Bath and Saracens.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bakkies

Unless they have retired from pro Rugby you would think they will be added amongst the 9 remaining squad places.

---

Think they are still on SR contracts being paid by RA. Maybe they can’t put that in jeopardy for a while?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UAUdiver1959

Think they are still on SR contracts being paid by RA. Maybe they can’t put that in jeopardy for a while?

---

Grant, brache, prior and lowrens were mentioned in nicks article, surely they are in the same voat