Hercus headed to Japan

Mike Hercus (Rob Wagner photo)

Eagle captain Mike Hercus will be heading to Japan in April after signing on to play for the Tokyo-based IBM club.

The USA’s all-time leading points-scorer has inked a one-year deal to play for IBM in Japan’s J League.

“It’s very exciting for me and definitely a step in my career that I wanted to make and I’m just happy that it’s come along now,” Hercus told ARN.

“While it doesn’t have the same duration as say the UK seasons, it’s an exciting, fast, and very competitive league.”

The US skipper says that one of his stipulations when negotiating the contract was that IBM would agree to release him for international duties so that he could meet his commitments with the Eagles whenever they are involved in Test matches.

“I was very clear in stating to them that my number one priority is to play for the Eagles and that I would not consider a contract if they required me to miss Eagles games,” continued Hercus.

“They have got a history over there of restricting players from playing in internationals, so I was very quick to nip it in the bud and say look, this is my priority and at the end of the day I don’t care what you’re offering, if I can’t play for my national team I’m not going to play.”

It’s extremely unlikely that IBM will release Hercus for this year’s NA4 series, although he expects to be released for the Barclays Churchill Cup series during the summer.

“I’m very clear that my first priority is to play for the Eagles, my second priority is to play for my club, and I think that’s the way it should be,” added the national captain.

Hercus is due to have a couple more starts for Belmont Shore in Super League before jetting off to Tokyo where he’ll quickly get on the field for IBM as the club has a rigorous preseason schedule ahead of the commencement of the 2008 J League competition in September.

Prior to signing with IBM, he had planned to return to Gordon in the Sydney Premiership in Australia. Gordon is the club where Hercus was playing when Belmont Shore president Doug Pye discovered him and brought him stateside in 2002.

Hercus has previously played professionally with Sale, Llanelli, and Newport-Gwent.