{"id":453943,"date":"2026-03-02T17:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/453943\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T17:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:54:18","slug":"saracens-eye-raid-on-northampton-saints-half-back-stocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/453943\/","title":{"rendered":"Saracens eye raid on Northampton Saints’ half-back stocks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saracens<\/a> could make a move for Northampton<\/a> Saints scrum-half Tom James<\/a>, with their Springbok star Ivan van Zyl<\/a> being lined up for a move to the Sharks<\/a> despite having a year left to run on his contract.<\/p>\n

The Durban United Rugby Championship<\/a> franchise wants van Zyl, 30, who has spent the last five years in North London, to replace Grant Williams<\/a>, who is moving to Japan<\/a> when his contract runs out this summer.<\/p>\n

Van Zyl, who has been capped six times by the Springboks, the last coming against Wales<\/a> in November 2018, spent six years with the Bulls<\/a> before joining the Gallagher PREM outfit, where he has made 116 appearances.<\/p>\n

The Sharks were growing in confidence over the weekend that Saracens, with whom they enjoy a good relationship, might release Pretoria-born van Zyl from the final year of his contract to replace Williams.<\/p>\n

There were whispers last week that Saracens, who have Wales international and Lions<\/a> tourist Tomas Williams arriving from PREM rivals Gloucester<\/a> in the summer, have been showing an interest in James.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old played for Bedford Blues<\/a> and Doncaster Knights before moving to Franklin\u2019s Gardens, where he has made 121 appearances, although only 46 of them have been starts.<\/p>\n

Scrum-half is an area where Saints are particularly well stocked, with Archie McParland<\/a>, who is 11 years younger than James, seen as the long-term backup to England<\/a> and Lions ace Alex Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Mitchell put pen to paper earlier in the season after rejecting an approach from Sale<\/a> Sharks, while former England under-20 international Jonny Weimann<\/a> has also been pushing for game time.<\/p>\n

Saracens have Charlie Bracken<\/a>, who was called into an England training squad last summer, but third-choice Gareth Simpson<\/a> looks set to join runaway Champ leaders Ealing Trailfinders next season.<\/p>\n

James has played 10 times for Saints this season, half of them in the PREM Rugby Cup, scoring a try in the win over Newcastle<\/a> Red Bulls two weeks ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saracens could make a move for Northampton Saints scrum-half Tom James, with their Springbok star Ivan van Zyl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-453943","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\/453943","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=453943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}