{"id":325303,"date":"2026-03-02T17:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/325303\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T17:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:56:08","slug":"leinsters-mcgrath-to-join-perpignan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/325303\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster&#8217;s McGrath to join Perpignan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Luke McGrath&#8217;s Leinster exit has been confirmed with the 33-year-old scrum-half set to join French side Perpignan at the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p>With 56 tries in 248 appearances for the province, McGrath sits fifth in Leinster\u2019s all-time top try scoring list. The last of those came<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/united-rugby-championship\/2026\/0227\/1560865-byrne-concern-for-ireland-as-leinster-lose-in-cardiff\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> in the 8-7 United Rugby Championship loss to Cardiff <\/a>on Saturday, ending the side\u2019s 11-game winning run.<\/p>\n<p>It had been reported recently that McGrath had been in talks with the Top 14 club who were also understood to have made contact with South Africa\u2019s back-to-back World Cup winner Faf de Klerk.<\/p>\n<p>McGrath has signed a one-year deal with the option of a second.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"fr\">\ud835\udc03&#8217;\ud835\udc2e\ud835\udc27 \ud835\udc2c\ud835\udc28\ud835\udc2e\ud835\udc2f\ud835\udc1e\ud835\udc27\ud835\udc22\ud835\udc2b \ud835\udc1d\u2019\ud835\udc1e\ud835\udc27\ud835\udc1f\ud835\udc1a\ud835\udc27\ud835\udc1c\ud835\udc1e \ud835\udc1a\u0300 \ud835\udc25\u2019\ud835\udc14\ud835\udc12\ud835\udc00\ud835\udc0f<br \/>L\u2019USAP et son pr\u00e9sident Fran\u00e7ois Rivi\u00e8re sont fiers d\u2019annoncer la signature du demi de m\u00eal\u00e9e international irlandais Luke McGrath, \u00e0 compter de la saison prochaine.<br \/>Benvingut, Luke. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sg5aMR8Fbd\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/sg5aMR8Fbd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 USAP (@usap_officiel) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/usap_officiel\/status\/2028459587095912710\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The player won a Champions Cup with Leinster as well as seven URC [formerly named Pro 12\/Pro 14] titles. In April 2017, he was named Leinster\u2019s players\u2019 player of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Watch Ireland v Wales in the Six Nations on Friday from 7pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport. Listen to commentary on an extended Inside Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 <\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke McGrath&#8217;s Leinster exit has been confirmed with the 33-year-old scrum-half set to join French side Perpignan at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-325303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}