Wee Dejong to go overseas?

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Cape Town - Springbok and Stormers centre Juan de Jongh could be the next high-profile player to leave South Africa for a future abroad. 

According to Netwerk24, De Jongh looks set for a move to Wasps in the English Premiership. 

The move, according to the report, would come at the end of the current Super Rugby season. 

With just 19 Test matches to his name, a move abroad would rule De Jongh out of Springbok contention until 2019 because of SA Rugby's new policy on overseas-based players. 

As from July 1 this year, only players with 30 or more Springbok caps will be eligible for the national selection if they are based overseas. 

In 2019, a World Cup year, that rule will not exist and everybody will be available for selection. 

De Jongh has spent all of 2017 on the sidelines with a knee injury, but he is set to make his return off the Stormers bench in Saturday's clash against the Sharks in Durban. 

 According to info De Jongh was ignored by foreign clubs despite efforts on his part to get a contract from any of them.   There are very sound reasons for that - he is a very average and even below par center on Super Rugby level.
There was a rumour recently that he was goings to sign with Wasps - they must really be desperate to find reasonable centers, but there has been no confirmation on this issue thus far.    I think that Wasp s may have developed cold feet on it - otherwise it would have been confirmed by now.  

'Wasps have confirmed the signing of Springbok and Stormers centre Juan de Jongh ahead of the new European season. Speculation of De Jongh's move started circulating late last week. Director of rugby Dai Young believes De Jongh's experience and ability to play 12 and 13 will benefit the Wasps squad, who suffered an agonising 23-20 defeat in the English Premiership final on Saturday. 'We are really pleased to have Juan coming on board next season. He has a good eye for a gap and plenty of pace which makes him dangerous in attack, while he also has strong organisational skills in defence. 'With Kurtley Beale returning to Australia to further his Wallabies career, Nick De Luca retiring and Alapati Leiua moving to Bristol, Juan and Gaby Lovobalavu’s arrival will add to the talented group of centres we have at the club. 'Juan is a good friend of Ashley Johnson, whose opinion we respect highly. We feel he will fit into the squad really well next season, after we’ve all dusted ourselves down from the Premiership final defeat and re-grouped to prepare to go again for the 2017-18 campaign.'"

I think the Stormers were probably looking to offload him anyway. 
He does not have the hands to be a playmaker, and neither does he have the size to defend against 100+kg  centres. 
Coetzee loves Dejong-  but even the useless Fleck realises that if he is going to have small wings- it is impossible to also have small centres.

It appears Wasps, who are professional outfit saw the benefit in de Jong.....or do you think they signed him just to be nice to Ashley Johnson?

De Jongh might not be an international centre, but he's a very useful one at club level and I'm sure he'll do well at Wasps.  

He was always marginal at test level, and of late he seems to be getting hurt a lot, the sign of a small engine over revving. But if he stays healthy he will help Wasps. He is one of the few SA centres who really provides line speed on defence.

 And on defense miss on average 26% of his tackles or chicken out from time to time when faced by a physically big opponent.   

" We are really pleased to have Juan coming on board next season. He has a good eye for a gap and plenty of pace wh ich makes him dangerous in attack, while he also has strong organisational skills in defence".Thank goodness they told us this as we would never have guessed. I can only say you are most welcome. 

 De Jongh was never as bad as Mike made him out to be, not really Bok material, but in the absence of centers begging ti burst onto the Bok scene, he was a handy enough stop -gap. Probably stayed a sesson or 3 too long at WP.

 dejongs best season was his first when played at 12 with jaque fourie at 13,
Since then he has some good games, but should have been a wing