Locks

The incoming director of rugby has been busy overhauling his squad while in his current role lead rugby consultant prior to the imminent departure of Alan Solomons. 

Diamond claimed on Tuesday that he has managed to sign every single one of the players he wanted to recruit, adding that there was one piece of the puzzle left to confirm and that it wouldn’t be Nakarawa who was linked with the club who have so far snapped up Italian duo Hame Faiva and Renato Giammarioli, Russian Valeriy Morozov, Sale pair Curtis Langdon and Cam Neild, and Australian Fergus Lee-Warner. 

The All Blacks lock was supposed to fly to Brisbane on Friday to start two weeks in hard quarantine, after remaining behind in New Zealand for the birth of his third child.

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) was only granted an exemption for Whitelock to quarantine in Queensland late on Friday, with his flight delayed until Tuesday.

NZR believe the timing of Whitelock's arrival would not give him enough time after two week's hard quarantine to safely prepare to play against South Africa on October 2.