The Club | Harlequins Rugby Union | Official Site : Seb Stegmann joins London Welsh

PREMIERSHIP RUGBY today announced an extension of their partnership with the UK's largest insurance company, Aviva, for a further three years.The contract extension, which starts in the 2014-15 season, will cover a golden era for club rugby in England and will include a period when the country will host a Rugby World Cup and when rugby union will finally rejoin the Olympic movement.

Denzel Boatey-Agyei, Nathan Thomas and Silas-Paul Johnson have all been selected for the Harlequins Elite Player Development Groups following recent performances during the National U15 tournament.

Mike Brown will play fullback for England as they take on the Barbarians on Sunday at Twickenham Stadium. Lining up on the opposition will be prop James Johnston who has been named in the Barbarians starting XV.

The 23-year-old winger had already signed a two year contract with London Welsh which was due to come into effect at the start of next season, however, having been approached by Lyn Jones, the club's Director of Rugby, requesting his early release, Harlequins felt it was in the best interests of the player's ongoing development that he got regular game time.

Hounslow born Stegmann is a graduate of the Harlequins Academy. He has represented England at Under 16, 18 and 20 levels and has made 35 senior appearances for Harlequins and scored 11 tries.

Commenting on Stegmann's release, Harlequins Director of Rugby Conor O'Shea said, "Given that Seb had already signed a two year deal with London Welsh for next season, once Lyn Jones approached us looking for his early release, we felt it was in the player's best interests to allow him to do so.

"The selfish and easy thing for us to do would be to keep Seb and I know how much he was looking forward to contributing to both the LV= Cup play-offs and our run in for the remainder of the season. However, with competition for places among our back three as keen as it is, we are comfortable we have made the right decision for club and player.

"Seb has shown great fight and application to come back from two years of injury problems and has contributed massively to us over these past two seasons," O'Shea continued, "I know he will be missed and everyone at the club wishes him well. Seb is one of the young players that have grown up through our academy process and we will say our formal goodbyes to him as a club at the end of the season. The more he plays the better he will be and we all wish him well in this new phase of his career"