Flailing Force take shot at controversial Cooper

[wholetruth]

Confirmed - Sias has gone. So now we have no fly-half, just great. As much as I have reservations, bring on QC please.


Nick Taylor
The West Australian
Western Force may target controversial Wallaby Quade Cooper to replace Sias Ebersohn, who has been released from the remaining two years of his contract with the Super Rugby club.
They are also interested in former Springbok and Stormer Peter Grant, who they tried to sign as a replacement for Matt Giteau six years ago.
Cooper has signed with French giant Toulon and though Queensland have withdrawn from contract talks, the ARU still has an offer on the table.
Any move to the Force would rely heavily on the ARU meeting the bulk of his salary.
The Force would need ARU dispensation for another marquee player to sign Grant or would have to shed one of Tongan forward Steve Mafi, New Zealand scrum-half Alby Mathewson or South African second-rower Wilhelm Steenkamp.
Ebersohn is not the seasoned fly-half the Force need to guide their back line next year.
Last season’s other No.10 Zack Holmes has replaced Grant at French club La Rochelle. Grant left last month for family reasons with a year left to run on his contract.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sp...ersial-cooper/
Ebersohn joined the Force from the Cheetahs as an overseas development player two years ago and still has strong ties with the Bloemfontein club.
Grant, who has family in Perth, made 104 appearances for the Stormers.
He won five Springbok caps and was tipped to make the No.10 jumper his own in 2007 until hampered by a shoulder injury.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sp...ersial-cooper/

[Alison]

Not sure I want either Grant or Cooper tbh. But I guess either would be better than nothing!

[Alison]

I wish Sias all the best for the future, and thank him for the hard work and commitment he gave to the Force.

[James]

Confirmed - Sias has gone. So now we have no fly-half, just great. As much as I have reservations, bring on QC please.

Jono Lance was originally a fly-half before he was turned into a utility back by the Reds (behind Cooper) and Tahs (behind Foley). I think part of the reason he wanted to come to the Force was for a crack at a playmaking role. I think Jono may be a better option for us than Sias and Zack Holmes were. Jono strikes me as being in the James Hilgendorf mould and I like that. However, I feel like we would need a more powerful 12 to complement him than some of the options we saw this year (Rasolea, Burton, etc). Maybe Tapuai is the answer to that. Maybe that combination would make Godwin work at 13.

I would also like to see Kyle Godwin given a good run at 10 at some point in the NRC.

[wholetruth]

Lance said he wants the 10 spot and that may be good for the future or even as a second receiver role but we need an experienced playmaker next year. Not sure about Godwin at 10. I know he played there for the Junior wallabies but I haven't seen anything in his kicking game to suggest he should be there.

[valzc]

Kyle kicking as 10 in Sevens rugby was hopeless back then, so don't know if his kicking at goal had got any better. The chip kicks certainly haven't that's for sure. He's not terribly good at passing either so that wouldn't help being a 10. And doubt whether Jono coming to the Force would be too happy at Cooper getting in front of him again as a 10.

[Petalz]

RWA could do worse.
They could do better, but they could do worse

Throw him a 2 year deal and see if he wants it. We don't really have anything to lose.

[tdevil]

Confirmed - Sias has gone.

Best news ever, never liked him....useless, but Grant is not the answer, he is even more useless.
What we need is a playmaker, neither of them are....If it turns out to be Cooper, maybe it's all we need to see what our backline can do once the ball actually reaches the wingers, something that didn't happen a lot since Sias arrived at the force.

[jargan83]

Sign him up yesterday.

[jono]

Without cooper the Reds wouldn't have won the title in 2011.
He's not perfect. But if we can get him for a decent rate, and not have to pay out this supposed fee to Toulon it's worth a shot.
Plus he's great with the kids and will help the development in WA. He'll go alright in a force Jersey IMO.

[wholetruth]

We may well want QC and go after him but realistically is it going to happen? Grant might be worth a year or so salary to bring a relatively inexperienced backline through.

[SNOB]

Speculation!
I'll believe it (maybe) when its announced by the Force and their isn't a get out clause because someone else has offered more!
I would love to have him here as that kind of quality can only help our back line even on a bad QC day!

[GIGS20]

If Queensland can't convince the ARU to get him out of the Toulon deal we don't stand a snowball's.

After Jono Lance's outstanding couple of minutes in the Tahs game tonight I'm pretty sure we need more than that. (two touches, two knock ons.....does that count as any touches at all?)

Shame Sias didn't make more of the opportunity, god knows both he and us needed it!

I'm pretty sure there's something in the works, you don't release your last experienced flyhalf from a 2 year contract without some plan all ready to go. I wonder if that something is Quade (we could do worse on the field, hopefully Hodgo can knock the smartass out of him off it) or Peter Grant (would be a better use of the marquee spot than Willy Steenkamp wearing a suit) or will the reins be handed to Burto in what would be the biggest deep end jump in rugby history.

It'll be fun to watch!

[AndyS]

One would hope they didn't release both Zack and Sias without having a plan. It would be pretty disappointing if that plan was so poor that it would be readily discarded in favour of opportunistically getting Cooper resigned to taking all that was left on offer.

[Tonkar]

If the ARU want cooper to stay we could get him for nothing and maybe a few extra dollars.. They made the rulles that all players need to be playing super 15 to play for the wallabiesor 60 plus test.... Cooper would hen not affect our salary cap at all.. But he needs his own health insurance as he is at present a health risk..