Gloucester bring in All Black Thrush

As revealed by Neil Fissler in The Rugby Paper on January 5, Gloucester have signed New Zealand international second row Jeremy Thrush from the Hurricanes for next season.
Thrush, who has won 11 caps for the All Blacks and was part of their recent UK tour squad, will join at the end of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
Director of Rugby David Humphreys said: “Signing a player of Jeremy’s ability further highlights Gloucester’s ambition to compete with the best clubs in Europe. He has been a stand out performer in Super XV rugby over a number of seasons, and the experience he has gained being part of a successful All Blacks squad will be a key element in establishing Gloucester as one of the dominant forward packs in England.
“His recent man of the match performance against Scotland showed what Jeremy will bring to Gloucester in terms of his rugby ability but he will also add huge value to the squad, both on and off the field, through his leadership abilities.
“As we continue to build our squad for the 2015/16 season, our initial focus was the retention of key players who were out of contract. This has now been done and with Jeremy’s announcement this morning, we will continue to add strength in depth to our squad over the next few weeks.”
Gloucester Rugby CEO Stephen Vaughan commented: “The addition of a top quality All Black like Jeremy to our squad demonstrates our determination to keep building towards having a squad capable of consistently challenging for honours going forward.
“We began a rebuilding process this season by introducing a completely new coaching set up and a host of new players and we see this exciting announcement as further reinforcement of our total commitment to investing in the playing squad.”