Flannery makes a 'brilliant' Premiership vs Super Rugby comparison

Harlequins assistant Jerry Flannery believes the Gallagher Premiership has eclipsed Super Rugby as a spectacle and insists that the product remains world-class despite the recent loss of Wasps and Worcester, who have been forced into administration and reduced the league to an eleven-team tournament. Quins take on London Irish at the Twickenham Stoop on Saturday with Mick Crossan, the owner of the Exiles claiming he would be happy to give that club away for free as long as a new owner took over their debts.

Flannery accepted that financial problems were hampering clubs in the English top flight but the Harlequins lineout and defence coach said: “This year’s Premiership is as good as I have seen as a spectacle. When I was with Munster we used to watch Super Rugby games and it was a different type of rugby and we were asking, ‘What are they playing down there?’ It looks like that up here now (in England) and it is really entertaining and a brilliant product.

“While there are a lot of questions about how have we lost two great clubs like Wasps and Worcester, the league as a product is really, really good. It is so tight in the Premiership. If it was one team winning all the time you would get bored with it.”

Having ended Sale’s unbeaten start with a Marcus Smith-inspired win at the AJ Bell Stadium last Sunday, Harlequins take on Irish with both teams missing their England squad players. However, with the fit-again Alex Dombrandt back from injury to make his 100th appearance, the hosts intend to take the aggressive defence they showed against Sale and use it to negate the Irish attacking threat by flooding the breakdown.

“We don’t want to get drawn into a Harlem Globetrotter spectacle with London Irish but it is difficult because they hold the ball for long periods,” suggested Flannery, who has been with Harlequins since 2020.  “We have to make them play in areas of the field they don’t want to and contest their rucks to slow it down and bring as many bodies into the breakdown as possible so they don’t have those multiple layers at the back they are so good with.

“We spoke in the leadership group that after this match there is a three-week break and the worst thing you could do is to lose on the back of a landmark game at Sale that we can reference back to because it isn’t the stereotypical style of Harlequins play. We want to take aspects of that into the Irish game, which is enormous for us, and we don’t want to drop off from that impressive performance at Sale.

“We are going to try and carry that over and regardless that different styles of collisions are still a big part of the game, if you can win them it goes a long way to freeing you on both attack and defence. I thought we defended well and I thought our kicking game made our defence look good. The main thing was the physical commitment to win the collisions. Alex Dombrandt trained this week and looked good and any chance to get a guy like him on the field we will take it.”