{"id":422785,"date":"2026-04-29T03:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T03:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/422785\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T03:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T03:47:13","slug":"jack-willis-speaks-out-on-switching-allegiances-to-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/422785\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Willis speaks out on switching allegiances to Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been lots of speculation!<\/p>\n

It is widely agreed upon that the best openside flanker currently playing in Europe is Jack Willis.<\/p>\n

The Toulouse man, however, has been absent from the international scene since togging out for England at the 2027 Rugby World Cup, given his contract in France.<\/p>\n

There has been much discussion over his Irish roots, with the 29-year-old qualifying later this year, thanks to his Northern Irish grandfather and his absence from England.<\/p>\n

We reported previously<\/a> on Jim Hamilton’s assertion that Munster had been in contact with a look at bringing Willis over to Ireland.<\/p>\n

The former Scotland lock said: “I felt a little bit embarrassed when I saw some of the mainstream media had picked it up, and I said to my team, I was like ‘lads, is this legit?’<\/p>\n

“I heard through a few different lines that there were conversations happening between Humphreys [IRFU High Performance Director David Humpherys] and Willis’s people, and I had to go back and fact check that, which was correct.”<\/p>\n

Appearing on the For the Love of Rugby podcast<\/a>, Willis spoke on his Irish connection and whether playing internationally in the near future is a possibility.<\/p>\n

He said: “I think I could offer more now, but when I signed this longer term contract I understood what came with that from an international perspective…<\/p>\n

“This club is an incredible club to play at and the rule is the rule. You’ve got to make peace with that…<\/p>\n

“Look, I am a quarter Irish. My grandad is fully Irish.<\/p>\n

“But if it involves moving it would sort of put me in the same situation as it would for England, it’s the same rule.<\/p>\n

“So yeah. There is always different things you can think about, but I think you would knacker yourself out if you’re always thinking about changing, moving, going here or there.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you’ve got to accept your reality. I feel like my reality is pretty good. I’m pretty grateful for being part of this club.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There has been lots of speculation! It is widely agreed upon that the best openside flanker currently playing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-422785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422785","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=422785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}