London Irish sign Alex Gray

London Irish have today announced the signing of England U20 captain Alex Gray from Newcastle Falcons.

http://www.london-irish.com/news/Irish62068.ink

Personally I think it's a great signing for the club, this kid can play and has a big future ahead of him. We now have some good young options in the back row, but I think we could do with one more experienced signing there, possibly an openside.

Wow, very good signing for Irish there. He's a cracking player. Really is.

6. Jamie Gibson
7. An experienced openside
8. Alex Gray

would be great in my eyes Munsty. Gutted we lost Armitage, I would be very excited about that as a back row. Doubt we will get anyone else in now, so likely to be Danaher or Thorpe at 7, or potentially Gibson at 7 which I don't like so much, with one of the others at 6.

According to LI;
"Number 8 is Alex’s primary position but he can also play openside flanker."

So maybe the big PI number 8 (begins with H....) Gray and Gibson on the flanks.

Hala'ufia. Think he may be in the Tongan World Cup squad though, so we'll lose him early season.

Another Newcastle youngster plundered from their academy. Not saying anyone has done anything wrong but it's just a shame that clubs (Newcastle especially) seem to create great youngsters only for them to get snapped up by bigger clubs.

What can they (or anyone else do) to reward clubs with academies?

Don't bet on anything with the Tongan squad. Tigers were gobsmacked last week when Mafi was sent back as surplus to requirements.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Don't bet on anything with the Tongan squad. Tigers were gobsmacked last week when Mafi was sent back as surplus to requirements.

Was he?

Nice one, Pete, he certainly looked good at the JWC - not the polished article, but handy and will help plug some gaps at Irish

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Steve-Mafi-s-World-Cup-snub-Tonga-shocks/story-13078474-detail/story.html

There you go MBTGOG, I was very suprised. He had a good season with us and is versatile being able to play 4,5,6,7. Thought he'd be at least a good squad addition.

Hala'ufia isnt going to the WC Pete.

so could well see

6 gibson
7 grey
8 hala'ufia

more likely to be

6 danaher
7 gibson
8 hala'ufia

Seriosly don't like Gibson at 7 stnick, would prefer to see either Danaher or Thorpe in that jersey and leave Gibson to concentrate on becoming a top class 6.

Going to be interesting to see how we go in the back row. Steffon and George gone, and that is a fair amount of power, experience and breakdown expertise.

Jebb Sinclair, Alex Gray and Ed Siggery in, so we are up on numbers, but not sure we have adequately covered the skills base that we have lost. Gray and Siggery certainly are potential at this stage, and could be very very good long term, but I suspect that this season at least, challenging for honours of any kind is going to be a little bit beyond us.

Danaher wont be back till later in the year.
Apparently Siggery is a fearless beast so looking forward to seeing him in action.

he's an ex-Scarlets academy player, and he's very highly rated, apparently he's viewed as 'one-that-got-away' and a quite a few people are miffed they let him go

Actually it's interesting that London Irish have more Welsh boys then Irish ones now!

Steven Shingler and Ed Siggery could be called very promising.
Ed Siggery is a massive loss to Wales we dont produce many good forwards so too lose one out of Wales is a bitter blow. We have a conveyour belt of backs but forwards are a rare breed .

There have been some very positive noises coming out of Sunbury about the squad make up with Toby Booth talking about losing unmotivated and disruptive influences over the summer and bringing in young enthusiastic guys who can drive the team forward.

I hope that they can, as there is a real lack of experience in a few positions, will be good to see how these young guys go. Just can't wait for the seaosn to start now.