Edinburgh Rugby centurion and full-back Blair Kinghorn will join Toulouse after next week’s BKT URC match against Ulster – subject to medical – after a six-figure release fee was agreed with the Top 14 side.
The 26-year-old’s current contract with the capital club was set to end in June, at which point he had already intimated his intention to move to the French side, with a fee agreed subsequently for his early release this month.
Edinburgh Rugby will continue to focus on the remainder of the season, with established depth and quality in the back-three, where Darcy Graham, Duhan van der Merwe, Emiliano Boffelli and Wes Goosen are joined by several exciting young Scottish talents coming through the ranks.
Edinburgh Rugby Senior Coach, Sean Everitt, said: “Blair is an Edinburgh boy through and through, a home-grown club centurion and Scotland internationalist – he’s certainly the type of quality player we’d have liked to retain in the blue and orange of Edinburgh Rugby.
“His intention to leave at the end of his current contract certainly played a part in our decision to agree to his premature release, as well as our well-documented strength and depth in the back-three.
“It was on that basis, we agreed reluctantly to this release in return for payment of a significant sum from Toulouse, which we’ll now consider carefully how best it can be reinvested in the club.
“We wish Blair all the very best in is new challenge in France and thank him for his commitment to the club.”
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Quiz! Can you name the 20 most-capped men’s England players?
Several of these individuals have participated, or are presently participating, in the contemporary era of rugby.
Can you identify how many of the top 20 most-capped England rugby players you can name?
We’ve supplied the total number of caps and their respective playing positions for each player. Your task is simply to complete their surnames.
You have a 5-minute window to attempt to guess all 20 players.
“Beyond a joke” – Nigel Owens calls for major changes to rugby
Popular former referee Nigel Owens has called for major changes to way games are officiated following what was a divisive Rugby World Cup.
The Welshman, who was writing in his column for Wales Online, believes there are a number of areas that need addressing after taking time to think about what went down in France.
Dump the bunker:
Owens wrote: “During the Rugby World Cup, I made no secret of my thoughts on the new TMO bunker. While it certainly showed how it can help to speed up games, it hardly reduced controversies or improved decision-making during the tournament and, in my opinion, ended up being used too much when the decisions should have been made by the on-field referees.
“At the moment, it feels like the TMO is refereeing matches and that is not a road that rugby should be going down. While technology has its place in the game, how it is used currently needs to change.”
Scrap the drop-out:
Owens wrote: “It was hoped that they would improve player safety by reducing the number of pick-and-gos and encourage teams to spread the ball along the back line rather than bulldoze their way over to score.
But if you look at games now, teams are still picking and going and they’re still bulldozing their way over the line. If anything, it rewards negative play as the defender can just chuck themselves under the ball and hold it up.”