An Irish qualified rugby league player who has played for the Irish Rugby League national team. He's a 10 from what I can gather but can also fill in at centre.

Doesn't seem to have played all that much going on the wiki page but maybe that's not the case

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Api_Pewhairangi

Anyone know anything about him? Apart from wiki info!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Api_Pewhairangi

Connacht Rugby has announced the signing of Ireland qualified Api Pewhairangi (23). 

The French transfer window for clubs established in Top 14 or Pro D2 closed at midnight on Monday 15 June. Newly promoted clubs have until 7 July to finalise contracts. Midol has published the full list of changes. Budgets are getting tighter and there are a number of relatively useful players out of contract, e.g. Richard Kingi and, ahem, Digby Ioane at Paris. (Ioane is rumoured to be on his way to England.)

It does sound a little crazy, but in reality most moves are done by mid June anyway. Certainly POC had a deal in place with Toulon before now, just waiting for the season to end and him to pass the physical to finalise it.

pinky wrote: Just saw mention in the report about POC contract that the French transfer deadline is today.
Never heard of this deadline before. Surely they can sign players during the off-season?
If not does that mean anyone who hasn't moved yet can't go to France and thus less competition for any Pro12 team out bargain hunting?

The French clubs are allowed a number for short term medical joker contracts mid season these are almost always lads who are released from/not upgraded to Super Rugby contracts. But the transfer window in France is always short - it opens in April and shuts down some time in June (last year it was about a week later than this year).

Ya spotted that too never heard of a transfer window that shuts so early in the summer. :S

Just saw mention in the report about POC contract that the French transfer deadline is today.
Never heard of this deadline before. Surely they can sign players during the off-season?
If not does that mean anyone who hasn't moved yet can't go to France and thus less competition for any Pro12 team out bargain hunting?

Be that as it may, I'm not expecting any earth shattering news on the signing front in the coming weeks. I was expecting POC to leap across the Shannon and head up to Galway, but Patchy has convinced me there is no room in the budget.

I'd hope it's not the last, in years gone by the last signing announcement would generally be accompanied by "with this signing Connacht have finalised their first team squad for the XXXX season" which wasn't on the Marshall announcement. So still room for hope if nothing else lads :woohoo:

I've done out a bit of a table based on the players who have had their contracts renewed this year versus wages freed up by players leaving. Although it's pure speculation, the money matches up fairly well, so I wouldn't expect any more new signings.
I don't want to post the table here, as I don't want to speculate directly as to how much individual players might be making, but if you look at the players who've had their contracts renewed this year; Loughney, Buckley, Belham, Heffernan, Harris-Wright, White, Cooney, Roux, Qualter, Dillane, Nauopu, Browne, Mckeon, Masterson, Cooney, Carty, McSharry, Finn, O'Leary, Poolman, Adeolokun, Leader, a lot of them are going to have had an increase in wages (and deservedly so), be that going from an academy contract to a first pro contract or a first pro to starter/vital squad member/etc. Given that I think the two new lads will be the extent of it.

Fair enough but taking for example even some of the squad players who are leaving, Sean Henry, Michael Swift or Miah Nikora. Swifty played little last year but given all he has put into Connacht I'm sure he was deservedly on a good contract. The lads coming up from the academy or on development contracts to full contracts still wouldn't be on anything like the kind of money these more experienced players were on I'd imagine. There doesn't appear to be a sufficient number of players stepping up a grade in terms of contracts that all the money saved from these lads leaving would disappear.

I suppose I should wait for the squad to be finalised before commenting too much though

The budget is easily explained - anyone going from academy to development contract is going from essentially nothing to between 10 and 30 k, anyone stepping up to a full contract would be on more than that. The going rate for a starting Pro12 player, as John Muldoon famously let slip on Sky a few years ago, is 100k, and front rows and ininternationals cost more again. We've re-signed a stack of players and only a couple of big earners have left.

Sorry phrased that wrongly. It probably hasn't been cut but but while I'm sure some of the money from players and coaches leaving has gone on new contracts etc., I don't really see where the rest of the money is going if the budget is the same. I doubt Jimmy Duffy will be on the money Dan was on. Mils was on good money. I'd imagine Willie Faloon was on bigger money than the lad coming over from New Zealand.

Kearney hasn't been replaced in reality, Roux was a vital player for us last season so that's one place where we are down and where options are limited enough in any case. Dillane has impressed me but after that in the short term at least we are very limited.

While there were a lot of positives coming from the academy and the lads on development contracts, to me there are still significant gaps in the squad and there is still a void in terms of leadership imo which needs to be addressed. We are at best standing still which means the rest are making ground on us with their signings.

Steady on, our budget is small enough without inventing rumours to the effect that it's being slashed.

The squad is certainly not weaker than last year, the age profile of the players and the numbers who made huge progressions last year would say otherwise. With the exception of Kearney, nobody who played much has left, and he's been replaced.

The big signings haven't worked out for us, so I don't see a lack of another as necessarily a problem.

Duffy will have his hands full replacing the irreplaceable alright. Considering Glasgow won the league with no scrum and no maul, God help the rest of us once Dan's gone to work on them.

By all accounts a good coach and will be familiar with the setup. However, its a huge step up and he has massive boots to fill. Wish him well.

Having said that, i'm getting increasingly worried that at a time when we should be looking to push on from the hard earned progress we have made, we are going to be working off a much reduced budget with a weaker squad. The signings the last few years have said to everyone that Connacht mean business. So far we have tied up two players who were on loan to us last season, both good signings and an unknown back row whose credentials are open to question. We have lost our biggest earner, our forwards coach and key players in the 2nd row and back row as well as other squad players. A lot of the academy players have shown they can step up and they need to be given opportunities but over the course of the season our squad wasn't strong enough last season so trying to achieve more with less is going to be next to impossible.

Its a very difficult market but really think we need to land at the very least a good 10 and a quality 2nd row or back row. Ok Carty did well against Gloucester and Ronaldson has shown promise when fit but its a position we need consistency and leadership in.

Worryingly there aren't even any rumours at this stage.

The sides around and below us are all making good signings and we are hoping to finish above them by at best standing still.