The rumours that eight-cap England international flanker Jack Willis is top of Bristol Bears shopping list ahead of next season continue to persist as Pat Lam looks to freshen up his back-row.
Willis, 26, is currently playing his club rugby in Toulouse having been made redundant when Wasps went into administration back in September. Bristol were strongly linked with trying to sign the then jobless turnover king in the Autumn but were unable to match Willis’ salary expectations within the reduced £5m baseline salary cap in the Gallagher Premiership.
With the RFU making a one-season exception to allow players to move abroad and still be selected for the English national team following the collapse of Wasps and Worcester Warriors, Willis moved to Toulouse where he has flourished with the club, and their Top 14 rivals Bordeaux Begles, both reported to be interested in acquiring his services ahed of next season.
With the likes of Exeter Chiefs stars Sam Simmonds and Luke Cowan-Dickie joining Montpellier next season, Harlequins centre Joe Marchan heading to Stade Francais and David Ribbans joining Toulon, England head coach Steve Borthwick is understood to have asked the RFU to rethink their policy on preventing overseas-based players from being picked for the national side in 2023/24 and beyond to allow him to field the strongest possible side.
But Premiership clubs are understood to be in fierce opposition to a rule change as it would significantly hamstring their ability to keep players in the Premiership as they would have to compete financially with the might of French Top 14 and Japanese clubs at a time when the English domestic game remains short of funds.
Against that backdrop, The Rugby Paper report Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam has ‘sounded out’ Willis about a potential move to the Bears again to allow him to extend his international career.
Meanwhile, Bristol’s out-of-favour Welsh flanker Dan Thomas looks likely to leave the club this summer having made just one start in the Gallagher Premiership during the 2022/23 season with Lam favouring Jake Heenan or Fitz Harding at openside, and blindside being mainly populated by Steven Luatua and Chris Vui.
Harding, 23, continues to go from strength to strength as he put in one of his best performances for the club on Friday in Bristol’s 62-8 victory over Northampton Saints, with Lam labelling the backrower as ‘world-class’ post-match.
He told Bristol Live: “He is world-class Fitz. He’s a real competitor. He is a real student of the game, works tremendously hard, plays 6, 7, 8, is great on attack, excellent in defence, he can offload. I'm really pleased with how Fitz is coming on.”
Harding did not come through the traditional academy route but was picked up from the BUCS university system and Lam said he has impressively transferred the superstrengths he showed as a student to professional rugby.
He said: “Fitz was someone who was at Durham Uni playing thirds or fourths when he first went there in the BUCS League and I saw him when he played sevens for us, but I saw him in videos of the BUCS League in the purple jersey of Durham and this is what he was doing. Offloading, smashing people, carrying people and he's just doing it obviously at another level now with us.”
On Friday night Harding finished with a team-high 23 tackles, with just one missed, 49m carrying, a clean break, three successful offloads, three defenders beaten, all while being a lineout option and dotting down a try.
The good news for the Bears is number eight Magnus Bradbury finished with equally impressive stats, providing significant competition in every position across the backrow with Sam Jeffries fit again as well.
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