The centre will be leaving Rodney Parade 12 months early
Australian centre Harry Wilson is set to leave the Dragons a year early after a difficult first season at Rodney Parade. The 24-year-old was signed from Super Rugby outfit Waratahs last summer, with high hopes surrounding the back.
However, his first season failed to take off despite the odd promising outing – with Wilson starting just five of his 12 appearances for the Men of Gwent. And as the Dragons look to rebuild after a disastrous campaign that saw them lose 17 United Rugby Championship matches in a row, Wilson has been ushered to the exit door at Rodney Parade.
The Australia dotted down just once for the club, against Munster back in January.
He departs with Moana Pasifika centre Fine Inisi having been signed for next season, as part of a busy recruitment drive by Filo Tiatia’s side.
Last week, Wales second-row Seb Davies became the Dragons’ eighth new signing, alongside Tinus de Beer, Thomas Young, Wyn Jones, Dillon Lewis, Inisi, Levi Douglas and Harry Beddall.
South African prop Robert Hunt is also set to join, while the club are understood to be in the market for a scrum-half, No. 8 and outside centre.
Wilson’s departure opens the door for another non-Welsh qualified centre, while it’s understood one of the Dragons’ back-row targets might have agreed a deal in Japan for next season.
Wilson’s early exit comes as Dragons co-owner David Buttress spoke out about needing to be ruthless in turning the Rodney Parade club’s fortunes around.
“The question is what you do about it?” said Buttress on the Dragons’ Lair podcast. “You take responsibility as owners for creating this environment and situation we’re in.
“You need to shift out players who are clearly caught in bad habits. This is the culture of the place we’re in.
“Secondly, you need to bring in players who come from environments where the opposite is true. So they know what good looks like and they know how to close out situations.
“That’s the only way you can move it forward. There’s no excuses for it. In professional sport, you have to win. I feel like the Dragons has got itself caught in this mindset that it’s OK to lose. It’s not OK.
He added: “I’ve probably come a little bit hard over the last few years that it’s just not good enough. That’s why I didn’t go to the awards dinner. I don’t want to condone a season where we win one league game.
“That is a disgrace for me. If it was Just Eat, my old business, I would let people go for that. I would be quite ruthless over that.
“It just has to change.”
Last summer’s recruitment has been pointed to by Buttress previously. Fly-half Lloyd Evans has left after a season, while Solomone Funaki failed to make an appearance in an injury-hit debut campaign.
“I look back and I’m annoyed at myself because owners have to take responsibility,” added Buttress.
“I didn’t do my own due diligence enough. If I go back to my business life, if I was making an investment in two or three key decisions that were going to be critical, I’d be all over the detail on that.
“I think in professional sport, you automatically think that, as an owner you invest the money and support the financials and there’s people around you are doing the same level of due diligence. The truth is they weren’t. I don’t think we’ll ever make that mistake again as owners. That’s our fault as owners. That’s my fault.
“In a weird way, I love the Dragons. Sometimes caring about something is not enough. That has to translate into doing something.
“Love means you make sure it does the best you can do. Last year, I didn’t get into the detail enough.
“I don’t think I did that homework and I regret that. I think our recruitment has been a lot better this year, but I feel we’ve lost a year.
“I feel like we’ve lost confidence and goodwill with some people that we shouldn’t have lost confidence with.
“We’ve tried to get recruitment right for this season. I feel very cautiously optimistic that our recruitment is a tonne better than it was last year. Hopefully that stands us in good stead for the coming year.”
