Ulster break the bank to land free-scoring All Black Charles Piutau

Ulster have broken into their bank vault to sign All Blacks scoring machine Charles Piutau with a reputed £1million-plus two-year deal.

The 23-year-old Piutau is rated as one of New Zealand’s hottest rising stars and his sudden plans for a post-World Cup move comes as a major shock to the current World champions.

It was thought the Auckland Blues utility back was poised to re-sign within the next two weeks, but Ulster clearly made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and the deal will be seen as the first major signing by Ireland assistant Les Kiss, who will take over as head coach at Ulster when the World Cup finishes.

Piutau, one of the quickest players in world rugby, is currently competing for a place in the All Blacks’ back three with Ben Smith, Julian Savea, Cory Jane and Israel Dagg.

He has also played centre for the Blues this year, but mostly wears the number 15 jersey.

Providing agreement from the NZRU is granted, it is believed Piutau’s contract with Ulster will start in 2016 and the Auckland Blues hope he will be available for next year’s Super Rugby campaign. Piutau will hope he can follow in the footsteps of other players who left their homeland and then returned to play again for the All Blacks. He would return to New Zealand at the age of 26, and available for the 2019 World Cup - and a lot richer for the experience.

For example, Jerome Kaino, the All Black back-row forward, has just secured a best-of-both-worlds deal back home, and that was after he took time out to play two seasons in Japan a couple of years ago.

Kaino’s new three-year agreement sees him become the first All Black to sign a contract beyond 2017. To compensate Kaino for passing up lucrative offers from Toulouse, Bath and Leicester, NZRU has granted him a sabbatical option, likely to be exercised after the 2017 Lions tour. He will likely return to Japan for another stint of not-too-taxing rugby.

Piutua, meanwhile, would become the highest-paid foreign player in Ireland, topping Ulster’s classy Springbok scrum-half Ruan Pienaar, who is believed to earning £400,000 for a three-year stint at Ravenhill.

Auckland-born Piutau was a member of the 2011 Junior All Blacks World Cup winning side that was overseen by Mark Anscombe, the former Ulster coach. The tournament was held in Italy and it was there that England’s Christian Wade first saw the speedster with gas to spare.

“There are so many Southern Hemisphere speed merchants, you could go for Zac Guildford or Jonah Lomu, who could run a sub-11-second 100m, but Charles Piutau I have seen in the flesh. I saw him out in Treviso for the Junior World Championship and he pulled out some crazy skills. He can do anything on the pitch!”

Piutua finished top try-scorer in that tournament, where Ulster’s Paddy Jackson played a prominent role for the Ireland team, while Anscombe’s son Gareth finished as top marksman.

Meanwhile, young Ireland hopeful Stuart Olding will undergo a second major reconstruction of his right knee which rules him out of the 2015 World Cup. Olding, who missed most of last season with the original knee injury, had just returned to action after a 10-week spell on the sidelines with an elbow injury.

He picked up the new problem in the opening minutes of last Friday’s win over Cardiff Blues.