By Jason Harris
April 21 2003

Hot on the heels of Newport admitting that their captain Simon Raiwalui will be joining Saracens next season and the news that the long-awaited David Flatman move to Bath is actually on comes more speculation about the comings and goings at Saracens before the start of next season. A couple of weeks ago Sarries fans were stunned to find that there were press rumours surrounding promising lock Stuart Hooper.

The former England under-21 international was allegedly on the move to Leeds Tykes for 2003-04 but this has not yet been substantiated. Leeds are on the look out for a new lock after Chris Murphy's move to Pau to join former Sarries favourite Steve Cheesebrough.

Other Sarries/Leeds news this week is that Llanelli and Wales fullback/centre Matt Cardey is currently a target for both clubs. The 27 year old New Zealander has made 80 appearacnes for the Scarlets after his move from Newport in 1999, scoring 34 tries and has been capped once by his adopted nation.

Finally, there is no further news on the speculation that New South Wales Waratahs and ex-Sarries stand-off Duncan McRae will be returning to the Men in Black next season. The asking price, according to reports a couple of weeks back, is reputedly around £100,000 per seaason. A lot of money for any Zurich Premiership side, especially when the Salary Cap restrictions are being tightened for next season.

There will be more news, rumour and speculation on thesaracens.com as soon as we get it!