Queensland Reds close to regaining Leroy Houston from England

The Queensland Reds are believed to be closing in on regaining the services of their former backrower Leroy Houston.

Leroy Houston dives over to score a try for Bath against London Irish early this month.

The Queensland Reds are believed to be closing in on regaining the services of their former backrower Leroy Houston but the time has come for letting go of Japanese superstar Ayumu Goromaru.

Goromaru’s prospects of playing in the Japanese Test side against Scotland next month were dealt a cruel blow when he suffered an AC joint separation as he made a desperate attempt to stop Sunwolves flanker Liaki Moli from scoring during the Reds’ 35-25 win at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.

He will undergo surgery to correct the damage and is expected to be sidelined for 12 weeks. Given that the Reds have not made him an offer for next season, he has played for Queensland for the last time. The question now is whether Toulon, which reportedly had shown interest in him, will persist with their inquiries.

Despite winning their third successive home game, the first time they have done that in a season since they beat the Blues, Sharks and Rebels in 2013, the Reds are now well off the radar as far as this season is concerned and will be playing for pride when they come back from what, for them, is a five-week break to play the Brumbies in Canberra and the Chiefs and Rebels at home.

Already focus is shifting to next season, with the Reds’ top priority seeming to be their efforts to bring Houston and Quade Cooper back to Ballymore. Cooper can get out of his contract with Toulon at the end of the season and the sentiment is that with a new coaching structure in place at the QRU — he was out of favour with former coach Richard Graham — he might be seriously interested in a return.

Houston, however, is less certain. In his last year with the Reds, the Suncorp fans used to taunt him with the call of “Don’t throw it to Leroy” because of his suspect handling, but since joining English Premiership club Bath he has emerged as a crowd favourite. From all reports he has grown into a battle-hardened backrower who could well figure in Michael Cheika’s plans.

The Reds will have an active rest week in the lead-up to their bye next weekend but the Sunwolves showed there were still gaping holes in Queensland’s game, most especially in defence. They scored four tries but invited the Japanese side back into the contest through their poor tackling.

“Our tackling was way too high,” said co-coach Nick Stiles. Even flanker Hendrick Tui, who is surely one of the leaders in the race for the Pilecki Medal, was guilty of going high and it cost him the huge embarrassment of Sunwolves centre Derek Carpenter palming him off for Japan’s first try.

“Individually, there were a lot of things I should have done better,” Tui admitted after the match.

For Samu Kerevi, who looks destined to make his Test debut against England next month, his main focus in the coming weeks will be to learn the intricacies of inside centre. Former Wallabies coach John Connolly always insisted Kerevi could become a Ma Nonu-like inside centre, which is where Cheika plans to use him, but the Reds were so keen to re-sign him, they were happy to play him wherever he wanted. And he liked the fit of the 13 jersey at outside centre.