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Harlequins statement: Jerry Flannery will depart in late February

Harlequins' Jerry Flannery (Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Defence coach Jerry Flannery will quit Harlequins later this month after the Gallagher Premiership club agreed to release him from his contract to take up an offer to join Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks.

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Flannery’s friend Felix Jones recently stepped away from his role with South Africa following their back-to-back Rugby World Cup triumphs to take up a role coaching defence for Steve Borthwick’s England.

That created the Test-level vacancy that will be filled by Flannery, the former Ireland hooker who previously worked under Erasmus at Munster.

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Both Flannery and Jones decided not to take up contract extensions at the Irish province in 2019 and while Jones was quickly snapped up by Erasmus to assist the Springboks for their World Cup campaign in Japan, Flannery took some time out before joining Harlequins in 2020 and helping them to Premiership title glory in his first season involved.

Erasmus went to the 2023 finals in France in a director of rugby role but with head coach Jacques Nienaber exiting after the tournament win to take up a senior coach position with Leinster, a coaching reshuffle became necessary.

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This resulted on Tuesday in Erasmus being named as Springboks head coach through to the 2027 World Cup in Australia and Flannery was confirmed as one of four newcomers to the Test team’s staff along with fellow assistant Tony Brown, former referee Jaco Peyper and the recently retired No8 Duane Vermeulen.

A statement on the departure of Flannery from the Premiership read: “Harlequins can confirm that defence coach Jerry Flannery will depart the club in February to take up a coaching role with the South African national team.

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“Flannery will depart for the Springboks following the high-profile friendly match at The Stoop on Friday, February 23, as Harlequins take on his former side Munster.

“Having joined the club in 2020, he has been a key part of the coaching team that won the Gallagher Premiership title in 2021 and now stands second in the Premiership.”

Harlequins director of rugby Billy Millard said: “We will be sorry to see Jerry go as he is a big character and can be very proud of his achievements at Harlequins. We wish him well as he moves into international rugby and continues to develop his career.

“He will always be welcome at The Stoop. For the rest of this season, we have a very strong group of coaches and are very fortunate to have assistant defence coach Jordan Turner-Hall with us, and the resources and structure to achieve our goals.”

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Flannery added: “I have loved my time at Harlequins working alongside a talented young group of coaches and players. The opportunity to move into international rugby and to work alongside Rassie Erasmus again after our time at Munster was very appealing.

“I would like to thank Harlequins for supporting my desire to take up this opportunity to develop my career. I look forward to the next few weeks with Harlequins and a final home match at a sold-out Stoop on February 23.”

In a RugbyPass World Cup column last September, Flannery described Erasmus as “an innovator, a genius”.

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2 Comments
m
mark 275 days ago

A big loss for Quins but you can’t restrict his progress.

N
Nuno 275 days ago

Looks like South Africa is assembling a dream team, poaching talent from rivals like it's a rugby supermarket sweep! First, it was Felix Jones, and now Jerry Flannery joins the Springboks' coaching lineup. The only defense these coaches are interested in is breaking down opposition strategies. Good luck, rest of the world – you're going to need it!

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Tom 3 hours ago
Borthwick, it's time to own up – Andy Goode

The problem for me isn't the pragmatic playstyle, it's that there is no attacking gameplan whatsoever.


I've got no issue with a methodical, kick heavy, defense centric gameplan. That playstyle won England our only world cup and it's won SA 4 of them. However! You can play in a pragmatic manner but you have to still play heads-up rugby and have the ability to turn it on when you manufacture prime attacking situations. England work very hard to get in the right areas of the pitch and have no idea how to convert when they get there, hence we tried and missed 3 drop goals as we were completely impotent in the 22. I've not seen any improvement in our attack in the last 4-5 years. The only time we got close to the tryline was from an interception, it's embarrassing. I don't know what Richard Wigglesworth is getting paid for.


I agree that England should have found a way to close out that game. Being able to grind out tough games is critical but I'd argue that being unable to string more than a couple of passes together without dropping it and finding a way to get over the gainline is even more important... But frustratingly, they don't seem interested. All you hear is about how close we are to bring a great team, we just need to execute a bit better. I don't see it. I see a team who are very physical, very pragmatic who do some stuff really well and are useless with the ball in hand which adds up to a very average side. They need to stop focusing on getting 5% better at the stuff we're already at an 8/10 level and focus on getting a lot better at the stuff we're doing at a 2/10 level. We have the worst attack of pretty much any side in the world... Argentina, Scotland, Fiji are way more threatening.

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