{"id":574014,"date":"2026-03-30T10:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/574014\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:59:10","slug":"ireland-rugby-out-to-poach-huge-australian-prospect-in-problem-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/574014\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland rugby out to poach huge Australian prospect in problem position"},"content":{"rendered":"

This would be some steal.<\/p>\n

It is being reported<\/a> from Australia that Ireland are bidding to poach one of the brightest rugby prospects in the country.<\/p>\n

Daily Telegraph journalist, Jamie Pandaram, has said that the IRFU are looking to bring the Irish-qualified Massimo De Lutiis to these shores in an ‘eye-watering’ deal.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old Queensland Reds tighthead prop has starred for the Australia U20s, Australia XV, and was called into senior camp last year and included in a January camp in 2026.<\/p>\n

South Africa prodigy Josh Neill recently switched allegiances to Ireland, proving that the IRFU can sway even the best talent from foreign countries.<\/p>\n

And this would be a particularly big coup, considering Ireland’s lack of options\/depth at tighthead.<\/p>\n

However, De Lutiis last year spoke about his desire to play for the Wallabies.<\/p>\n

He said<\/a>: \u201cI really want to get a Wallabies cap this year. Whether that happens or not, it\u2019s not really in my control. I can only put my best foot forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time it was like \u2018oh my god, what\u2019s happening\u2019 and there is a lot of overthinking going on. This time around, especially with the diary, it\u2019s helped not to be as worried and focus on the task at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This would be some steal. It is being reported from Australia that Ireland are bidding to poach one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-574014","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\/574014","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=574014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}