Welcome to the New Lads

By Whaley Shark
June 15 2014

Unlike some times in the past, it looks like we’ll have a relatively limited turnover of players this summer. We have a number of leavers and, as always, I wish them well, and most of our signings seem to be pretty much direct replacements for those moving on.

Alberto de Marchi is a 28-year old, current Italian international prop with 19 caps, 9 as starter. At 6 feet tall and 238 lbs, he certainly sounds like a prop and, although he’s supposedly a loosehead, he can apparently play both sides of the scrum. He joins from Benetton Treviso and turned in a particularly noteworthy performance in the last 6 Nations, when he matched England’s Dan Cole in the Italy-England game this March.

Because you can clearly never have too many props, Steve Diamond’s also signed Darren Fearn from Bedford Blues. He’s a 6 foot 3, 286 lb monster, also a loosehead and three years younger than de Marchi, who’s spent the last two years learning his trade in the Championship, with 31 appearances (24 starts). Before Bedford, he started out at Falcons, where he spent two years, with only a handful of bench appearances.

Veteran lock Nathan Hines is also joining us, this time from Clermont Auvergne. Australian-born, he had a more than ten year international career with Scotland. He’s been around a bit during his career, having spent time with Edinburgh, Perpignan, Leinster and, most recently, Clermont Auvergne. He’s clearly got a bit of an edge to his game, having been the first Scot to be sent off in international rugby and missing out on a Lions cap in 2009 after being cited and banned, and at 6 foot 7 and 256 lbs, I have no intention of tangling with him.

Aberdonian Chris Cusiter, 32 years old, 5 foot 11, 185 lb, has come in this summer from Glasgow as a like-for-like replacement for the departed Dwayne Peel. An experienced international scrum half, you can see part of his role being to bring on the likes of Cliffy and Nathan Fowles. With 68 Scotland caps and one Lions test cap in a ten year international career, he’s vastly experienced, although still very much part of the Scotland setup.

Finally, there’s Italy fullback Luke McLean, 6 foot 3 and 209 lb, and a man with an obviously Italian name. He’s actually a Queenslander, qualified for Italy through an Italian grandmother, and has clocked up 59 caps and seven for Italy. He’s 26 and very much Italy’s first choice fullback at the moment and joins from Benetton Treviso, where he’s clocked up over 40 appearances in the last 4 years.

This looks like pretty sensible recruitment to me. A couple of seasoned players to give stability and transfer their nous to the younger players coming through; a couple of established current internationals, but hopefully not big name show ponies who are a bit too ‘special’ to play for us, and a bit of potential. Nice mix in my view, Mr Diamond- it’ll be interesting to see how they shape up.