Jamie Roberts joins exodus of top players from Wales

  • Wales
Jamie Roberts won his second Grand Slam in Wales colours earlier this year Credit: David Davies / PA Archive / Press Association Images

Jamie Roberts will leave Cardiff Blues at the end of the season, the club has confirmed.

The Wales and Lions centre, who turns 26 today, is thought to be on his way to Racing Metro, although that destination hasn't been officially confirmed yet.

He is the latest in a string of high-profile players to leave regional rugby. The Blues Chairman Peter Thomas has hit out about the 'player drain out of Wales', and called for more help from the sport's governing body here, the WRU.

Roberts is a product of the Blues academy, and made his senior debut for the region in August 2007. He has gone on to make 81 club appearances to date. He's appeared for Wales 44 times, was part of Grand Slam-winning teams in 2008 and 2012, and was named the Lions Player of the Series on the 2009 tour of South Africa.

He is also a medical student at Cardiff University, and will sit his final exams around the time of the 2013 Six Nations.

He looks set to join a long line of Wales players who have been lured by the attractions of the big-spending French game.

Among the current international crop:

  • Prop Gethin Jenkins left Cardiff Blues this summer to join Toulon

  • Lock Luke Charteris left the Dragons this summer to join Perpignan

  • Scrum-half Mike Phillips left the Ospreys in summer 2011 to join Bayonne

  • Fly-half James Hook left the Ospreys in summer 2011 to join Perpignan

  • Full-back Lee Byrne left the Ospreys in summer 2011 to join Clermont Auvergne.