Open season as rivals swoop on troubled Carnegie

RIVAL Championship clubs are poised to raid Yorkshire Carnegie’s squad while budgets at Headingley for the 2019/20 season remain unknown.

In what appears to be a last roll of the dice, last week Carnegie issued a statement saying they were extending their search for fresh investment overseas, in the United States and other specified territories, having drawn a blank closer to home.

Valeo, specialists in attracting new investors to Premiership and Championship Football Clubs in the UK, have been tasked with leading the project.

Even if new money is found, it is unlikely to come in time to prevent the current squad from breaking up. Other than the seven mid-season recruits who arrived from New Zealand on 18-month deals, all of Carnegie’s squad are out of contract and available at the end of this season.

With little more than two months of the season to run, players and coaches do not know what the future holds. Unless concrete guarantees are made imminently by the Carnegie board, heads will be turned if alternative employment opportunities arise.

Bedford Blues, for example, have already offered terms to rangy back rower Dan Temm, the former Newcastle player who has been one of Carnegie’s outstanding performers this season, while Jersey hope to tempt injured South African fly-half Brendan Cope back to the island.

In the meantime, Doncaster and Ealing are both keen on Leeds-born centre Pete Lucock. His midfield partner, Andy Forsyth, has also been linked with Harlequins by our Blindside columnist, Neil Fissler. To lose Lucock, their best homegrown player, especially to the Knights, would be a bitter pill to swallow and speaks volumes for how far the club have slipped down the English rugby hierarchy since they dropped out of the Premiership in 2011.

Full-back Chris Elder, whose confidence has soared with the improved on-pitch performances of the team since the Kiwi cavalry arrived in November, is preparing to drop down a division and join mid-table National One outfit Chinnor to be closer to his family.