THE Edinburgh head coach Alan Solomons last night signed speed merchant Michael Allen from Ulster as he continues his rebuild of the club, writes David Kelso.
The coach identified Allen as a ready-made replacement for the Scotland winger Tim Visser, who will move to Harlequins at the end of the season.
And Allen couldn't disguise his delight at the prospect of plying his trade at BT Murrayfield.
The 24 year old, who is best known as a centre but can also operate on the wing, admitted he tries to model his game on former All Blacks giant Jonah Lomu and Aussie ace Matt Giteau.
Allen said: "My first real rugby memory was watching Lomu demolished England in the 1995 World Cup in South Africa.
"And up until recently, whenever Ulster were playing Toulon in the European Champions Cup, I was hoping to play against Giteau.
"Obviously I know all about Murrayfield from facing the Gunners and I'm really looking forward to moving to the city.
"Edinburgh have made tremendous progress this season and I have been impressed by the style of play which is developing within the club.
"They have played some brilliant rugby this year and shown the potential of being a very, very good side.
"I have been impressed by their ethos, the fitness and physicality.
"They clearly pride themselves on being the best defensively, the fittest and the most disciplined and I'm just looking forward to getting stuck in."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article