{"id":478947,"date":"2026-03-16T17:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/478947\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T17:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:44:10","slug":"christ-tshiunza-snubs-welsh-urc-return-as-prem-club-win-tug-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/478947\/","title":{"rendered":"Christ Tshiunza snubs Welsh URC return as PREM club win tug-of-war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sale <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/sharks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sharks<\/a> have won their tug-of-war with Cardiff to sign Exeter Chiefs\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/wales\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wales<\/a> international openside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/christ-tshiunza\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Christ Tshiunza<\/a> when his deal with the Devon club ends later this year.<\/p>\n<p>Cardiff, who had Tshiunza, 24, in their academy before he moved to the University of Exeter, had been confident of taking him back to the Welsh capital until the Sharks hijacked their move.<\/p>\n<p>Tshiunza, born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but educated at Whitchurch High School in Cardiff, returned to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/chiefs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chiefs<\/a> side for Sunday\u2019s humiliating 66-14 PREM Cup Final thrashing at the hands of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/leicester\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leicester<\/a> Tigers.<\/p>\n<p>The 23-minute cameo was just his fourth appearance in a season marred by a recurring foot problem and was his first since coming off at half-time in the draw at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/northampton\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Northampton<\/a> Saints in the opening game of the PREM season in September.<\/p>\n<p>The Sharks have already confirmed seven new signings for next season, including Welsh international loosehead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/nicky-smith\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nicky Smith<\/a>, who is moving from Leicester Tigers, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/england\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England<\/a> centre Joe Marchant.<\/p>\n<p>Tshiunza, who last played for Wales in the defeat to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a> in November 2024, had been earmarked by Cardiff to replace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/ben-donnell\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Donnell<\/a>, who is heading to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/united-rugby-championship\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">United Rugby Championship<\/a> rivals <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/ulster\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ulster<\/a> next season.<\/p>\n<p>The Chiefs are prepared to let him leave without resistance as they try to meet EQP regulations next season, with director of rugby Rob Baxter needing to maintain an average of 15 EQP players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is out of contract at the end of this season with us, and we haven\u2019t re-signed him. The tough one with Christ, really, I don\u2019t mind saying, our EQP numbers are quite tight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd making sure that we have that balance in the squad, because for us, it\u2019s very, very important that we keep the funding for the EQP balance and we fill up our non-EQP quota pretty quickly,\u201d Baxter recently told RugbyPass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sale Sharks have won their tug-of-war with Cardiff to sign Exeter Chiefs\u2019 Wales international openside Christ Tshiunza when&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-478947","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\/478947","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=478947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}