Latham Set to Join Player Drain With Move to Worcester

The Australia full-back Chris Latham is set to join Worcester next season after turning down a new contract from the Wallabies. The 32-year-old will play for the Queensland Reds in next year's Super 14 before joining the migration of southern hemisphere players north.

Worcester, who employ the New Zealand internationals Rico Gear and Sam Tuitupou, refused to comment but reports in Australia said that Latham, less than a week after Robbie Deans was appointed as the Wallabies' new head coach, had signed a three-year deal worth £900,000.

Latham has scored 40 tries in 78 Tests and he will be free to add to that tally next summer before moving to England to see out his career. The Australian Rugby Union had offered him a two-year contract with an option of a third but it was unable to compete financially with the Guinness Premiership's basement club.

Such is the concern in Australia and New Zealand about the purchasing power of clubs in England and France and the damage being done to their domestic games that a player agent based in Auckland yesterday launched an attack on the former All Blacks scrum-half Byron Kelleher, who joined Toulouse after the World Cup.

Lou Thompson claimed that Kelleher was tapping up former international colleagues, such as the outside-half Dan Carter and the back-rower Jerry Collins, in collaboration with a French agent, Manu Blorville, in an attempt to lure them to Europe.

"It is a bit of a concern," said Thompson, who said Blorville had been in New Zealand recently speaking to a number of the Chiefs' Super 14 squad. "He makes regular trips here claiming he is representing clubs with his mate Byron Kelleher and it is not an ideal situation."

Kelleher's business representative, Joe Hutley, said: "There is a lot of frustration among players in New Zealand about the way they are represented and treated. If one of them rings Byron and is told that life in France is great that might upset the manager of that player, but Byron is entitled to talk to his mates."

Newport-Gwent Dragons have fined Rhodri Gomer Davies and Rhys Thomas for breaking a team curfew following the team's Heineken Cup victory over Treviso earlier this month. The duo were involved in a fracas outside a nightclub after the match on December 8 and after being detained for two nights by Italian police were reprimanded and cautioned in court before being allowed home.

The Dragons have fined the pair a month's wages, two weeks of which will be suspended providing they do not breach rules on discipline during the remainder of their contracts. A statement said: "The pair faced the Dragons board and admitted they had brought the region into disrepute. It was further agreed, at the behest of the players, that £1,000 of the fine will be given to the Teenage Cancer Trust charity, the charity the Dragons are raising funds for on New Year's Day."