HIGHLY rated ex-pat Leroy Houston is on the verge of signing a deal to return to the Queensland Reds for next season and could be sighted in Wallabies gold within months.

But Houston may not be the only prodigal son to return to Ballymore, with Quade Cooper deep in talks about coming home from France as well. The Reds are even pushing to get the whole band back together and are targeting Will Genia and Scott Higginbotham as well.

But it is Houston’s signing that will send shock waves across the world, with the 29-year-old a much-loved backrower at Bath.

media_camera Leroy Houston played 46 matches with the Reds before heading overseas. Picture: Darren England.

Houston was visited in England by Michael Cheika in March when the Wallabies coach went on an European tour with a mission to encourage ex-pats to return to Australia, play Super Rugby and become eligible to play for the Wallabies.

Houston said he was “chuffed and flattered” to be recognised by Cheika and the sales pitch clearly worked.

The 115kg no.8 still has a year to run on his contract with Bath but the QRU — presumably with ARU help — has lured Houston back to the Reds.

After emerging as a talented teen at the Waratahs in 2005 — and making a Wallabies tour aged 18 — Houston played again for Ewen McKenzie in Queensland between 2008 and 2011. He won nine caps in the 2011 title season off the bench but didn’t play finals, and moved onto France the next year.

He joined Bath in 2013 and quickly discovered career-best form. Houston the club’s players player in his first year and now holds the reputation as one of the Premiership’s best forwards.

Houston told Bath press last month “it’s one of my dreams to play international rugby” and under new eligibility rules that saw Dean Mumm and Kane Douglas play at the World Cup last year, once Houston signs with the Reds for 2017 he can be picked by Cheika.

If he doesn’t play a role in the Rugby Championship, a Spring Tour spot would seem likely.

Cooper is believed to talking to the Reds about a return home with a year still to run on his Toulon contract, after mixed success in France.

Genia has been mentioned as another interested in a return but we understand it is far less likely.

The Reds are keen to get Higginbotham — another of the 2011 Reds heroes — back as well but the money in Japan is hard to beat.

FOLEY’S RUN OUT OF TIME

media_camera Is Michael Foley a dead man walking at the Force?

The Force’s woes are well documented so this news won’t come as a shock: Michael Foley has been told he won’t be coaching the club in 2017.

Foley has a year left on his contract and has an even longer timetable for success but we hear he’s run out of time, and was given the heads up by Force boss Mark Sinderberry that the club will make a change at the end of the season.

Foley has won just 31 per cent of his 55 matches in charge of the Western Force.

REBELS CLOSE IN ON KOROIBETE

Storm winger Marika Koroibete is very close to signing with the Melbourne Rebels and ARU. Michael Cheika is a big fan of the flying Fijian and it would be no surprise to see Koroibete taken on the Spring Tour as a development player.

ZOOLANDER PHIPPS GETS A LITTLE HELP

Poor old Nick Phipps has copped nothing but grief since he crowned Men’s Health Man of the Year this week.

So who are we to change a winning formula?

We asked his flatmate Bernard Foley for the inside word.

“It was mandatory that everyone at the Waratahs had to vote 50 times. Rob Horne policed it,” Foley revealed.

“He has come into his element in the beauty pageant world. He doesn’t mind the catwalk and getting his kit off.”

media_camera Nick Phipps won the celebrity Men's Heath Man of 2016 by ... default? Picture: Daniel Linnet.

Foley attended the ceremony but said Phipps had kept his shirt on.

“He had been doing the extras in the gym just in case he had to take his shirt off on the night but it wasn’t required,” he said.

“Nah it was great he won but to be fair, he has been parading around the locker room like he’d won for a number of weeks.”

And sorry ladies, Phipps is taken.

“He is very much off the market,” Foley said. “But if there are any inquiries I am happy to handle them.”

HISTORY REPEATING FOR HOOKERS

The Reds-Brumbies hooker swap appears to be still running. With Stephen Moore moving back to Queensland next year, we hear Saia Faingaa is heading back to the Brumbies next season. They did the reverse exchange in 2009.

ANGUS DOESN’T IMITATE DAD

media_camera Angus Scott-Young got some sound advice former his father Sam Picture: Sportography

ANGUS Scott-Young heard the stories often enough to have learned his lesson long ago.

When in front of the haka, the best face is a poker face.

Do not — as his father Sam famously did as a Wallaby in 1992 — wink and blow kisses at the Kiwis. He ended up with stitches in his head soon after.

“He has told the story 1000 times down the pub, he’s definitely the local hero,” Scott-Young said.

So when Angus Scott-Young got his chance this week as a loose forward for the Australian under 20s against New Zealand under 20s on the Gold Coast, it was all business.

“I didn’t do what Dad did. I just stared and accepted the challenge,” he said.

He takes plenty from his dad — “I like to play aggressively and with physicality” — but another huge influence on Scott-Young has been his Queensland under 20s forwards coach, Brad Thorn.

“He’s been incredible. I learned so much from him, and his career,”

“He was always so physical, and just ice-cold as well. There was no emotion from him on a field. He’d give them nothing.”

The second game between Australia and New Zealand under 20s will be played on Saturday night at Bond University at 6.30pm. It is streamed live on rugby.com.au.