{"id":931715,"date":"2026-05-01T23:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/931715\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T23:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:45:15","slug":"edinburgh-sign-english-stand-off-james-grayson-from-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/931715\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh sign English stand-off James Grayson from Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The son of former England stand-off <strong>Paul Grayson<\/strong> (a member of the 2003 World Cup winning squad) arrives at Hive Stadium with extensive experience from playing in both England and Japan, having made close to 100 appearances and scored over 600 points for boyhood club Northampton Saints before moving to the J-League in 2023, where he has made 48 appearances for Mitsubishi Dynaboars and scored 294 points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter three years overseas, the time feels right to return closer to home, and the opportunity to play in the URC was a big factor in my decision,\u201d said Grayson, who can also play full-back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s also a special moment for me and my family \u2013 my great granny was a very proud Scottish lady, and I know she would have been delighted to see me make this move.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to getting started, competing with the squad, and creating special memories in front of the supporters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving watched a number of games, the Hive looks to have an incredible atmosphere, and I\u2019m excited to experience that for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Grayson represented England from U16 through to U20 level, featuring in the 2017 and 2018 U20 Six Nations campaigns, including a defeat to Scotland at Myreside, when he lined up against future Edinburgh team-mates <strong>Ross Thompson<\/strong> and <strong>Marshall Sykes<\/strong> in the home side.<\/p>\n<p>Edinburgh Rugby head coach, <strong>Sean Everitt,<\/strong> added: \u201cWe\u2019re really pleased to add James to the group. He\u2019s an impressive player \u2013 someone who reads the game well and brings a real quality with the boot, both from hand and at goal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s played a huge amount of rugby at a high level, first with Northampton in the Premiership and then across three seasons in Japan, and we think that experience will allow him to hit the ground running when he arrives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019ll come in and challenge for the ten jersey, and that competition for places will be good for the squad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The son of former England stand-off Paul Grayson (a member of the 2003 World Cup winning squad) arrives&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,85185,1102,10753,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-931715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-divi","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-edinburgh-rugby","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}