Signing season is upon us.
Edinburgh have already re-upped on Ben Vellacott and Emiliano Boffelli with the latter being confirmed as signing for another two years taking his stay at Edinburgh to 2025. Vellacott’s deal was described as being ‘multi-year’ which most of us would predict as being 3 years.
Only a few days later Edinburgh confirmed that they had secured the services of Munster standoff Ben Healy, in a much predicted move, for the beginning of season 2023-2024 and confirmed it as a 2 year deal.
So a couple there with actual lengths in actual numbers but most of the squad deals are still mired in code like ‘longest deal ever’, ‘long term’ or ‘forseeable future.” So bear in mind that this assessment who might be going is largely based on educated guesswork.
However we do have a snippet of information to help us. In an interview in The Times, when discussing the Healy move, Mike Blair said, “we had 27 guys at the start of the year who were out of contract and we are working our way through that.“
I think the 27 looks like this -
Pierre Schoeman
Boan Venter
Jamie Jack
Nick Auterac
Harrison Courtney
Stuart Mcinally
Dave Cherry
WP Nel
Lee-Roy Atalifo
Luan de Bruin
Angus Williams
Glen Young
Pierce Phillips
Bill Mata
Nick Haining
Henry Pyrgos
Charlie Shiel
Jaco van Der Walt
Blair Kinghorn
Charlie Savala
James Lang
Mark Bennett
Cameron Hutchison
Chris Dean
Matt Currie
Jack Blain
Henry Immelman
Boom, there's 27. Let me explain why I think these are out of contract at the end of season and what I think will happen.
Pierre Schoeman signed his last deal on 3/12/19 and it was described by Richard Cockerill at the time as a deal to take Schooey beyond SQ qualification which when he said it would have meant 2023. The question then is what does ‘beyond’ mean. I’m guessing it's the end of this season and I've heard a rumour that he’s off to France.
VERDICT. IN THE BALANCE but mostly because i’d be disappointed if he left.
Boan Venter’s last deal was announced on 9/2/21 and was confirmed by an Offside Line article as being a 2 year one. He will then be out of contract at the end of this season. I think he will be staying
VERDICT. STAYING
Jamie Jack, Nick Auterac and Harrison Courtney I’ll lump together because they were all signed in 2022 but as effectively back up looseheads I’m guessing that they were all given short 1 year contracts. Auterac has had a couple of brief appearances off the bench this year, is Scots qualified and was named in the Scotland squad for the aborted 2021 summer tour so i’ll say he is staying. Jack has one appearance this year but isn’t Scots qualified unlike Courtney who is through his grandfather. Courtney has already had his first contract extended following his promotion from Watsonians Super 6 side in 2021.
VERDICTS.
Auterac - STAYING
Courtney - STAYING
Jack - LEAVING
WP Nel. What can I say? He signed a new deal in February 2021 which was said to be till 2022 at the earliest. He’s still going but will be 37 before the end of this season. I think WP will make up his own mind but when he does he won’t be going far. That said it won't be to strength and conditioning. If he does we will need reinforcement.
Verdict. RETIREMENT
Luan De Bruin was announced as joining Edinburgh in March 2021 for the following 2021-2022 season. The length of his deal is unknown but two years is par and I suspect that's what he has.
VERDICT. STAYING
Lee-Roy Atalifo. The Fijian hasn’t featured for Edinburgh at all this season. He signed an extension in March 2022 and Mike Blair said he had been ‘secured for next season.’ Thus I expect he is out of contract at seasons end. Angus Williams is the go to man for that tighthead bench spot when WP is unavailable so I think Atalifo will go.
VERDICT. LEAVING
Angus Williams as mentioned has had a few bench appearances this year. He signed a two year deal in 2020 and then in March 2022 his contract was extended with Mike Blair who said he was ‘really happy to have secured Williams for the following year’.
VERDICT. STAYING
Glen Young and Pierce Phillips were signed by Edinburgh January and April of 2021 for the following season. Young is now a Scottish international whereas Phillips isn’t, has only one start to his name this season and has competition by our other international second rows in the form of Hodgson, Sykes, Skinner and of course Gilco.
VERDICTS
Skinner, Staying
Phillips. Leaving
Bill Mata. BBM last signed an Edinburgh contract in January 2021 and there was no indication that this was a multi-year deal so his contract may be up at the end of the season. He’s played all but 2 games this season which leads me to think that Edinburgh are getting the most out of him they can before he moves on.
VERDICT. LEAVING
Nick Haining. Haining’s last contract renewal was in 2021 and I’d be surprised if that had been more than a 2 year deal. He is now 32 and has spent quite a bit of time on the physio table this season so I’m not sure he will have too many suitors away from Edinburgh and if BBM is leaving then a fit Nick Haining is probably worth holding onto.
VERDICT. STAYING
Henry Pyrgos. The last time HP was out of contract I predicted he may retire and that was in 2020 and then he subsequently signed a new deal in early 2021 which given the fact he is still here was at least a 2 year deal. He will be 34 before the new season starts. So again I’m going down the same road with one caveat. He may get a 1 year deal and with 80 Edinburgh appearances to his name that should be enough to make him a centurion before he retires.
VERDICT. LEAVING
Charlie Shiel. I think it even came as a surprise to Edinburgh that Shiel had 50 appearances for the club as it was 3 days after his late cameo against Glasgow that they highlighted it. The scrum half will be 25 in December and really needs more than 191 minutes over 5 appearances going forward. Perhaps his time is coming if HP does retire.
VERDICT. STAYING
Jaco van Der Walt, Blair Kinghorn and Charlie Savala. Jaco signed a new contract in January 2021 and BK followed suit in December of the same year. There was no hint on what Jaco had been given but BK’s own Instagram feed suggested he was signed for 2 years. That is a likely duration for both of them. Savala signed for the club in 2020 and re-signed in February 2022. I know he has been recently offered a new contract so by virtue of that he's in the 27. So all 3 fly halves out of contract and a new one in the shape of Ben Healy announced only this week. Who is the odd one out? Despite being only 1 point short of becoming 3rd top on Edinburgh’s all time points scoring records my money is on Jaco. Mike Blair has preferred Savala for the most part so something has to give.
VERDICTS
Blair Kinghorn. STAYING
Charlie Savala. STAYING
Jaco van Der Walt. LEAVING
James Lang signed a new deal in January 2021 which is suspected to be a 2 year one. and in December 2021 Cammy Hutchison was upgraded to a full squad contract from The Academy. Typically the deals for the younger players are one year, I assume, in case they don’t progress the way we hope they will. Matt Currie similarly signed his first pro deal in January 2022. Mark Bennett and Chris Dean both re-signed a day apart in May 2022 and their deals were described as extensions. So probably 1 year. I’ll keep this one simple.
VERDICTS. Lang, Hutchison, Currie, Bennett, Dean. ALL STAYING
Jack Blain. Blain signed his last deal in 2021 and its highly unlikely that was for more than 2 years so will be up for renewal. One appearance this year and only 5 in the previous year, along with the decision to move Boffelli to wing and bring in Paterson at 15 instead of using Blain suggests his standard isn’t flying too high in MIke Blair’s view. In fairness the competition he has for either wing is brutal but…….
VERDICT. LEAVING
Our last man standing is Henry Immelman. Henry joined the club for season 2021-2022 having been announced in April of 2021. So despite no hints either way it's highly likely that his contract was 2 years. That seems standard for non-Scots. He has grown on me as a player but when you take into account that the Healy signing will have implications in other positions he does appear to be surplus to requirements and he isn’t SQ.
VERDICT. LEAVING
So, there we have it. A lot of deals to be sorted out over the next wee while and while some of the names may be wrong I can’t have picked an entirely different 27.
I did the same half-baked assessment last year and had a look at 17 players that may have been out of contract at season's end. I got all but 3 right and one of that 3 was the unfortunate George Taylor.
Watch this space.
ADDENDUM. on 19/1/23 Dave Cherry signed a new deal for another 2 years at Edinburgh which alerted me to the fact that I skipped past the hookers in this piece. McBurney signed for start of this season so has another year, probably, whereas Stuart Mcinally was given a 'long term' deal in 2020 which may mean 3 years so will potentially be up at the end of this season. It's common knowledge that he hopes to become a commercial pilot on his retiral from rugby. With the number of concussions he's had of late i'd think this would be the right time to go do that.
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