London Irish Secure O’Connor Deal

After a few weeks of speculation, London Irish have today confirmed that Australian international, James O’Connor, will join the exiles until the end of the season.

O’Connor, 23, has played 44 tests for the Green and Gold, after being the second youngest Australian international of all time when he made his debut in 2008.

The versatile back featured in all three of the Lions tests in Australia this summer; scoring in the final test in Sydney.

He last played for the Wallabies in this year’s Rugby Championship victory over Argentina.

After making the long journey to England, O’Connor is poised to make his Aviva Premiership debut this weekend at the Madjeski Stadium when London Irish host second place Northampton Saints.

In 2008 James started his Super Rugby career with Perth based Western Force, where he appeared 38 times, scoring a mammoth 306 points, before he signed for the Melbourne Rebels.

O’Connor has played for the Rebels for the last two seasons, making 21 appearances and scoring 175 points.

However, the utility back has been allowed to move to England after the Australian Rugby Union terminated his contract a few weeks ago following on from a string of off-field incidents.

O’Connor took to social media and said that “I thoroughly believe I can improve elements of my game by playing in the Premiership.”

The young Wallaby was told that he would not be offered a contract with the national side for 2014 after an investigation had found out that he had “failed to uphold the behavioural and cultural standards expected within the team”.

However London Irish Director of Rugby, Brian Smith told Planet Rugby that "James is a world-class player and a terrific kid and it is fantastic to have him at London Irish.

"He will bring a huge amount of experience to our group and will fit in well to our style of play.

"He is fit and ready to play so the coaching group will get him up to date on everything and hopefully he'll be ready to go this weekend."

O’Connor, himself, added that "London Irish offered me an environment that I felt comfortable with.

"The club is renowned as a welcoming, family club throughout the world, it has a highly regarded Australian Director of Rugby in Brian Smith and plays a style of rugby that appeals to me.

"In England and Wales they play a very high-pressured, territory based game. I thoroughly believe I can improve elements of my game by playing in the Aviva Premiership."

As rumours mounted about the huge cross-hemisphere signing, Talking Rugby Union spoke to London Irish centre, Fergus Mulchrone, a few days ago, and, surprisingly, the Exiles back said that he had not heard anything about the potential signing.

“To be honest you’ll probably know a lot more than me.

“As a club we don’t keep an eye on the media, we would just wait to be told.

“But, so far we’ve not heard anything about that.”

However, Fergus did admit that signing “a name like that would obviously be a fantastic acquisition for the club and it would contribute greatly our development as a side.

“With boys like that, even if you’re not in the team there’s so much that you can pick up from just training alongside them.

“The bigger talent that you have in the team the more we’re going to learn.”

O’Connor looks set to make his exiles debut this weekend when London Irish host Northampton Saints.