Digby Ioane signs with the Crusaders
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...934cc5b1f77619
Former Wallabies winger Digby Ioane is rumoured to be heading back from Japan to play Super Rugby, but not for Queensland nor any of the other four Australian franchises.
It is understood Ioane, who played the last of his 35 Tests for Australia against the British and Irish Lions in 2013, has been lured to the Crusaders by incoming coach Scott Robertson as a replacement for giant Fijian winger Nemani Nadolo who is headed to Montpellier to play under Jake White.
Ioane was a critical member of the Reds’ championship-winning team in 2011, frequently teaming with five-eighth Quade Cooper to create some of the most dazzling rugby seen in Australia. It was, for instance, Ioane who was the target of Cooper’s outrageous behind-his-own-goalposts crosskick against the Cheetahs that almost led to a 110m try.
Yet although indications are Cooper almost certainly is heading back to Ballymore, Ioane, who left the Reds at the end of the 2013 season to join Stade Francais *before moving to the Honda Heat, will not be joining him.
Instead, he will resume his Super Rugby career — 20 games for the Western Force in 2006-07 before playing 66 matches for Queensland from 2008-2013 — with the Crusaders, assuming he has no more difficulties with the knee injuries that have dogged his career.
That presumably would place the 31-year-old out of the reach of Wallabies coach Michael Cheika because players returning from overseas to the Super Rugby competition must play for an Australian franchise.
Meanwhile, the Melbourne Rebels have boosted their depth in outside backs by signing former Australian sevens star Pama Fou. Had it not been for a freakish fall in his bathroom in June, resulting in a ruptured ACL, Fou almost certainly would have been heading to Rio as a key member of Australia’s Olympic rugby sevens team.
The Auckland-born 25-year-old made his debut in sevens in 2011 and has been a sevens regular for so long that he is uncertain what his best position in 15s rugby might be.
Almost certainly, Rebels coach Tony McGahan will see him as a centre or winger, although the wing stocks are looking particularly healthy after Melbourne Storm winger Marika Koribete joins forces with Sefa Naivalu, Tom English and Dom Shipperley later this year.
“What appealed to Tony and me was that Pama offers something different in terms of his *aerial skills and his evasive skills,” said Rebels general manager of rugby, Baden Stephenson. “With players like him and *Koribete and Jack Maddocks, they’ve all got some key points of difference.”
Meanwhile, there may yet be a Wallabies player make the Rio squad after Brumbies winger Henry Speight was chosen with Tom Kingston as one of two reserves for the Australian team.
The two players cannot live in the Olympic Village unless a *player drops out of the squad and only one of them will be permitted to join the team even if there is an *injury on the opening days of the Games tournament.
It’s long odds at best, especially since the team’s only doubtful player at present is a forward, Nick Malouf.
