{"id":223834,"date":"2025-10-18T23:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T23:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/223834\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T23:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T23:30:07","slug":"tom-willis-to-drop-out-of-england-reckoning-after-signing-bordeaux-contract-england-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/223834\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Willis to drop out of England reckoning after signing Bordeaux contract | England rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Willis will leave Saracens<\/a> at the end of the season after signing a contract with Bordeaux that will make him ineligible for Steve Borthwick\u2019s England squad. In a major blow to the head coach, Willis has rejected a new deal from Saracens in order to return to the club where he spent a chunk of the 2022-23 campaign once Wasps had entered administration.<\/p>\n

Since heading to north London in 2023, he has established himself as England\u2019s first-choice No 8 and was awarded an enhanced contract by the Rugby Football Union in recognition of the impact he has made.<\/p>\n

However, RFU rules state that only players competing in the Prem are eligible for Test selection and Borthwick must now decide whether to pick Willis for the upcoming autumn and Six Nations knowing that he will not be available for the 2027 World Cup. Borthwick on Sunday names his first training squad, as Australia\u2019s visit to Twickenham on 1 November approaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cTom and I had a great conversation during the week,\u201d Saracens\u2019 director of rugby, Mark McCall, said after Saturday\u2019s 65-14 victory over Sale. \u201cTom had put a lot of thought into the decision and he feels like it\u2019s the right decision for him and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe explained a few things to me and we completely respect his decision. It\u2019s up to him what he wants to do and where he thinks he\u2019ll be happiest.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the decision he had made, how well did he play for us against Sale? He\u2019s committed to playing well for us for the rest of the season. We all respect the decision he has taken.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Willis will leave Saracens at the end of the season after signing a contract with Bordeaux that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-223834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}