Confirmation from the club


Club grants winger's request to leave to join Agen

Harlequins can confirm a deal has today (Monday, August 3) been finalised that will see Ibitoye leave the Club with immediate effect to join French Top14 club, Agen.

Following Ibitoye’s request to leave the London Club during rugby’s COVID-19 hiatus, Harlequins, who were committed to retaining the services of Ibitoye, have now agreed to let him join Agen after reaching a satisfactory compensation fee for the mid-season transfer.

Harlequins head into the remainder of the postponed 2019/20 Gallagher Premiership season extremely well resourced on the wing.

With the long-awaited return from injury of England prospect Nathan Earle, the impressive Cadan Murley, the Champions Cup record try-scorer Chris Ashton, young South African star Tyrone Green (set to arrive the Club shortly) and the versatility of fullbacks Aaron Morris and Ross Chisholm and skilful centre Joe Marchant - the latter of whom has featured on the wing for the Blues during his loan spell in Super Rugby earlier this year - the Club heads towards rugby’s return at The Stoop on August 14 against Sale Sharks well-stocked on the wing.

The Club recently welcomed back to training England’s most-capped full-back, Mike Brown, who is in line to make his return against Sale, nine months after his last appearance in the Quarters.

https://www.quins.co.uk/news/harlequins-agree-compensation-fee-to-release-ibitoye

I'm not sure the club has made a huge blunder, as suggested by the Telegraph article. It seems they tried quite hard to keep him.

Agreed. I do wonder if this is a "summer holiday" story. It's very different from Marland Yarde's move to Sale.

He had some good moments, but my teenage kids, who are generally pretty fair, actually cheered when I told them the news. Too many missed tackles and random chucking of the ball to nobody,

Gustard makes a reference to Gabs' departure in this video at 59 seconds.

Well least good in my opinion is about all round game.  I prefer to see any of Ashton, Earle and Murley on the teamsheet to him.  Then we have Green, Marchant, Baby Chis, Brown, Morris and young 'un that I forget for now who can all do a job.  I don't blame him for going but if Earle or Murley had gone, I would have been a lot more disappointed.

Don't know about least good but he was the most exciting one.
The reason I started watching Quins in the first place was because they played an exciting brand of rugby that would mean they were always going to make mistakes.
Anyway he's gone now so we should just move on and support the players we still have!

Gabs had the ability to create something from nothing. His finishing defied belief at times. But he also had the ability to create nothing out of something.

Murley is the one to watch. He breaks tackles that he really shouldn't for a player of his size. I think he'll outshine Gabs in the long run.

Yeah seeing lots of clips of his wonder tries but not many of the blowing 2 on 1s and hail mary passes out of the tackle. If we had put in a clause to get first refusal on his return I'd have been happy as he may well mature and add a bit more structure to his game.

For now, good luck young man. Listen and learn and you could be very good. Become a Strettle rather than a Lindsey-Hague.

I know Marchant played a couple of games on the wing for Blues, but I really don't think we should class him as a wing option. We (as in fans on here) tend to have a habit of including players who could, at a real push, cover a position in an emergency as one of our regular option. Usually a centre who can play wing or vice versa, or someone who played 10 once in the A league during an injury crisis.

We've really struggled with injuries in recent years and I'd hope that the management aren't including players who primarily play in one position as cover for others. I'm sure they're not.

I'm disappointed Gabs has gone as he's a rare talent and his defence seemed to be improving. He clearly had flaws in his game but you'd hope they could be coached, whereas you can't coach the talent he has. Still, he's gone so no use crying about it now. Maybe he'll come back to us, but players very rarely do. If he came back to the Premiership I suspect he'd go elsewhere, but who knows. We do have a decent stock of other good wings, all with different strengths, but I'd rather have kept a homegrown player with unique talents than bring in a promising but unknown player from elsewhere (think of the South African chap)