I know he was thinking of leaving due to Joe Retirement from England and how much game time he would now get. So it doesn't surprise me but interesting to see who get brought in.

Shame to lose him - he'll be playing for England himself at some point, powerful guy.

Aren't we rumoured to be getting an Argentine prop?  Not sure if a name has been suggested yet, but presumably will be the main back-up.  Something must be up with Auterac - he's barely featured, so wouldn't be surprised if he went too, in which case we'd need further back-up.

Not sure anything's up with Auterac other than Marler and Boyce being better and being available.

Shame Boyce is going. If he's getting paid much more then fair enough, but I'd hoped he would stay and fight to be no1. If he wants to play for England then he needs to prove he can compete with the likes of Joe

Just me who doesn't get the hype around Boyce then? Haven't seen anything that's blown me away and definitely nothing to suggest he's anywhere near Marler's level (yet, admittedly, given how young he is - but Joe isn't old either). Just not convinced he's that much of a star. He's that fashionable Genge-esque loves running about in the loose kind of prop but I'm not convinced that's what we want. It's not top of my priorities for a prop, that's for sure. Provide animalism at the scrum and around the ruck week in, week out and you're my man - anything else is a bonus.

Very happy we have Joe as our no. 1. With a gnarly seasoned scrum specialist LH incoming (hopefully), Auterac (if he gets through his injury problems) and as long as we can find a decent young gun to promote from the academy I'm pretty happy with our options there. Lots of ifs there but I'm optimistic.

I really doubt Boyce was going to supplant Joe as regular first choice any time soon (Joe's easily got 4/5 seasons of peak performance ahead of him) so good move for him. I'm sure he'll now prove me utterly wrong - usually the way these things go.

Have no problem with them being handy in the loose - but our scrum has traditionally struggled. Joe is typically great - it tends to be as soon as we replace him our scrum goes to pot. That's why I'd like to see someone come in who can really beast his opposite number in the scrum. As long as he's not as tragic as Dan Cole in the loose then that's gravy as far as I'm concerned.

Can Ibuanopke play LH as well mebbes?

Never ever seen him play there in all the years I've been watching him (say since he was about 15). Number 8 or TH so doubt he can play LH

Imagine a number 8 that makes Billy Vunipola look small...

If I remember correctly, he also played lock in an A League game against Sarries played at Esher last season.

Just for the record I don't think he's played Number 8 at any level above school boy though. But, NFQ's correct that he has guested in the row for the 'A' league side