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Say it isn't so! This would be a massive loss, especially being one of our local boys. Australia really can't afford to lose quality props like this.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au//spo...-1226932364190
AUSTRALIA is set to lose a potential World Cup prop with rising Western Force tighthead Kieran Longbottom poised to announce he has signed with *English club Saracens.
Wallabies coach Ewen *McKenzie told The Australian last night he became aware a week ago that Longbottom had committed to London club Saracens and, in line with the policy of not choosing overseas-bound players that cost NSW Waratahs lock Kane Douglas and Brumbies number eight Ben Mowen places in the Wallabies squad to play France, crossed the 28-year-old frontrower off his selection list.
“He was definitely a guy we looked at very strongly and we did, after all, pick his two front-row partners at the Force (hooker Nathan Charles and loosehead Pek Cowan), but these are the decisions players make,” McKenzie said.
“It’s a bit frustrating. I spoke to him back in January so he would know he was at least on our radar.”
Longbottom’s loss, coming on top of Rebels lock Hugh Pyle’s decision to sign a two-year deal in France, is a deeply worrying development for Australian rugby.
The game long ago came to terms with the fact that long-serving Wallabies would seek a “golden handshake” contract overseas at the end of their *careers.
There was even widespread acceptance that Mowen, though only a one-year Wallaby and the Australian captain to boot, had done the right thing by himself and his family by getting in ahead of the post-World Cup stampede to sign with Montpellier.
Douglas almost certainly would have been one of Aus*tralia’s starting Test locks this year but if he represented the present for the Wallabies, then Longbottom, the first born and bred Perth footballer to proceed through the WA rugby pathways to play for the Force, represented the *future.
Saracens were on the receiving end of Matt Giteau’s brilliance in the Heineken Cup final on the weekend as he and Toulon teammate Drew Mitchell seemingly represented the past of Australian rugby.
It is understood Long*bottom received a massive offer from Saracens, “ridiculously high”, as one source had put it, and not even the lure of continuing to play a key role in a Western Force side dramatically on the rise was *sufficient to offset the chance to set himself up *financially for *life.
It is understood he is the only Force player coming off contract who has not re-committed to the club.
The Queensland Reds, meanwhile, are examining whether sabbaticals — allowing players to have short-term, high-earning stints offshore before returning to Australia to resume duty with the Super Rugby side — might help arrest the flow of talented players to the northern hemisphere.
“I think it’s inevitable as part of the evolution of the contracting model that that will happen,” said Reds coach Richard Graham. “It’s a reward for service to the game.”
The Reds are particularly conscious that captain James Horwill, playmaker Quade *Cooper and halfback Will Genia, who this weekend against the Highlanders will join the other two in the elite “100 games for Queensland” club, will be high-profile targets of northern hemisphere clubs following next year’s World Cup, which is to be played in Britain.
Reds chief executive Jim Carmichael said the issue of sabbaticals was a complex one and not one that could be tailored to any particular player or group of players.
“We’re looking at something that works for the long-term sustainability of the game,” Carmichael said.
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Originally Posted by shasta
