{"id":260323,"date":"2025-11-13T11:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/260323\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T11:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:10:12","slug":"springboks-lock-jean-kleyn-set-to-leave-munster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/260323\/","title":{"rendered":"Springboks lock Jean Kleyn set to leave Munster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Springbok lock Jean Kleyn<\/a>, who is out of contract at the end of the season, is at the centre of a tug of war between Top 14<\/a> giants Toulouse<\/a> and Bordeaux-B\u00e8gles.<\/p>\n

Kleyn, 32, would become the only current Springbok to ply his trade in France<\/a> if he were to join either of last season\u2019s Top 14 finalists following a series of high-profile departures over the last 12 months.<\/p>\n

Kleyn won five caps for Ireland<\/a> before switching his international allegiances to his country of birth after being snubbed by Andy Farrell for three years.<\/p>\n

He has made 156 appearances but RTE Sport report he is being lined up for a move across the Channel after failing to sign a contract extension to keep him in his adopted home beyond the end of the season.<\/p>\n

Kleyn, who started his career with 19 games for the Stormers, stands at 6 ft 8 in and weighs in at 123 kg. He last played for the Springboks against the Barbarians<\/a> in the summer and has helped Munster<\/a> win five URC games this season.<\/p>\n

He was part of the Munster side that won the United Rugby Championship<\/a> back in 2023, the year that he helped them retain their World Cup crown, coming off the bench in the final victory over New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Kleyn, who is married to a Galway girl, Aisling, and in 2023 had finished building a home near Munster\u2019s training centre at the University of Limerick, told the Irish media how his move to Munster changed his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy entire world has changed through my move to Munster. It\u2019s an odd one, but it\u2019s incredibly heartening to know the move at the start was worth what\u2019s happening now, where I am now in my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have great friends, I\u2019m part of a great club, a great community. It\u2019s weird to think how much time has passed and how much has happened since I arrived here first.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I ever had what I have now in mind for myself, but everything I have now I wouldn\u2019t trade for anything in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Springbok lock Jean Kleyn, who is out of contract at the end of the season, is at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-260323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}