Fissler extra: Lowe's Leinster future up in the air, Tigers in lock search

Ireland and Lions winger James Lowe could be nearing the end of his Leinster career as he approaches the final months of his contract.

The 33-year-old’s CV is floating around clubs in France and England and demand is likely to be high after he returned to form in Ireland’s win over England a fortnight ago.

Lowe, a member of Ireland’s 2023 Grand Slam-winning squad, has made 99 appearances for the province and has scored 68 tries and touched down 17 times in 45 games for his adopted country.

The winner of five United Rugby Championship titles and a Champions Cup is on a Leinster contract topped up by the IRFU under the Player of National Interest scheme.

Leicester Tigers are scrambling around trying to sign a replacement lock in time for their Champions Cup trip to face Bordeaux at the Stade Chaban-Delmas early next month.

Geoff Parling has been without George Martin, who has been out of action for over a year with a shoulder injury, and Cameron Henderson hasn’t played since the win over Harlequins at the end of January.

The Tigers have been assessing who is available for an immediate move to Welford Road and are trying to get someone in before Bristol Bears visit in three weeks’ time.

Sale Sharks are in advanced talks with Griquas skipper tight-head Cebo Dlamini about a move to the North-West later this year after watching him closely after he moved to the Dragons in December.

Dlamini, 24, who also played for the Sharks in the United Rugby Championship and the Champions Cup this season, made six appearances off the bench for the Dragons and started a Challenge Cup game.

He led the Griquas to their first Currie Cup title in 55 years and is now recovering from a foot operation, while his Kimberley franchise team-mate, winger Gurshwin Wehr, scored one try in six appearances for the Sharks this season.

Veteran former France scrum-half Maxime Machenaud, who will be 38 later this year, is returning to his former club Racing 92 after signing a one-year contract, banishing fears that his career could be over.

Machenaud, who has made four appearances for Bayonne this season but hasn’t played since October, spent nine seasons at Racing, playing 218 games before leaving for the Basque outfit in 2022.

Despite tearing an ACL attempting to tackle Pau’s Argentina international, Facundo Isa, he vowed to return, saying, “I’m not at the end, not ready to turn the page, and not ready to quit,” which he will now do with Racing.

Former All Black Carlos Spencer has announced that he is leaving Terenure College at the end of the season to return to New Zealand to be nearer to his family, who didn’t travel to Ireland with him.

Spencer only became head coach of the AIL Division 1A side in the summer on a three-year deal, saying that it’s the first time he had coached outside his homeland without his family being with him.

“I thought I was strong enough to do it alone, but with commuting at the right times, I wasn’t. The pull from my family at home has been too strong,” he said in a statement.

Lyon, who made Treviso’s Puma loose-head Thomas Gallo their first new signing ahead of next season, are understood to be in the market for three more players.

They are looking for two tight-head props, with one of them set to be 27-year-old Tongan Opeti Helu, who is set to leave Japan Rugby League One outfit Kubota Spears when his contract runs out later this year.

Helu will replace Saracens-bound Jermaine Ainsley, and they are looking at locks, too, after Killian Geraci, who has won four French caps, announcing that he is joining Bayonne this summer.

Former Exeter Chiefs and Glasgow Warriors tight-head Enrique Pieretto Heiland is leaving United Rugby Championship strugglers when his contract runs out at the end of the season.

The Argentine international, who made one appearance at the 2019 World Cup, has made six appearances since his debut in January against his former employers, Glasgow.

The well-travelled Pieretto Heiland, who also counts the Jaguares, New South Wales Waratahs and Provence among his former clubs, is returning to the Pro D2 after signing a two-year deal with Agen until 2028.

Ireland boss Andy Farrell has thrown his support behind his former club, Wigan Warriors, playing a Super League game against Warrington Wolves in Dublin.

Both clubs have been in Dublin in the last few weeks to discuss taking a game across the Irish Sea to face off at the RDS Arena in 2027.

But they will have to wait for Leinster’s United Rugby Championship and Champions Cup fixtures to be released later this year before locking in a date for the game.