England's stunning swoop on Cardiff Met kids explained as Eddie Jones leaves no stone unturned

When Eddie Jones said every club would now be looking in the bars of Cardiff Met for rugby players, it was a classic quip from the garrulous Aussie.

But, on a more serious note, he also called the Cyncoed college “a popular breeding ground for Test match rugby players” and he has provided further proof of that with the latest addition to his England squad.

Jones has just drafted in uncapped London Irish back row forward Tom Pearson, a 22-year-old who only graduated from Cardiff Met last summer.

Pearson follows in the footsteps of two other former Met students, Harlequins duo Alex Dombrandt and Luke Northmore, who are already part of the Six Nations group.

He hails from Herefordshire, having begun his rugby journey with Bromyard RFC and Luctonians, ahead of moving to the Welsh capital for his studies.

Having made a big impact as a rampaging second row in BUCS Super rugby and the Welsh Championship, he actually trained with Cardiff Blues towards the end of last season.

But he opted to return to England by taking up a contract offer from London Irish and has really hit the ground running with the Exiles, utilising his sizeable frame to good effect on the openside flank.

Met forwards coach Alun Williams says the 6ft 2ins Pearson caught the eye from the moment he first turned up at training back in the autumn of 2018.

“He came in as a fresher and straight away we went ‘Ooh, hello, he’s physical’,” he recalls.

“He just smashed people for fun.

“Even though he was pretty skinny kid at the time, we spotted his physicality from the outset.

“So we put him straight into the high performance group, our top 50 players, giving him strength and conditioning coaching and nutritional advice.

“He came into us at about 15 and a half stone