Run by committee: How a quartet of coaches turned Harlequins' season around
Quins have been transformed since Paul Gustard left in January - and the club has achieved this without replacing Gustard

By
Charles Richardson
26 March 2021 • 8:00am

On January 20, Harlequins were floundering in seventh in the Gallagher Premiership and had won just two of their eight matches. A week earlier, Paul Gustard - the director of rugby in all but name - had been sacked.

Eight games on, and something curious has happened; Harlequins have started winning again – and winning well. They now sit third: as of this morning, no team in the league had scored more points this season; or made more clean breaks and turnovers; and only Exeter had scored more tries.

Most curious of all, however, is that the club has achieved this without replacing Gustard – not yet, anyway. When the former Saracens and England coach departed, first-team responsibilities were bestowed upon former half-backs Nick Evans and Charlie Mulchrone – who have looked after the backs – while former Wales tighthead Adam Jones and former Ireland hooker Jerry Flannery have continued with their scrum and line-out duties, with the latter also taking on defensive duties.

Harlequins have opted to discard a hierarchical coaching structure with an omnipotent senior individual in favour of a committee. Billy Millard, the club’s rugby general manager, has admittedly been keeping more of an eye on the first team than usual since Gustard’s departure – Millard's usual role involves overseeing all of the club’s rugby operation including the development, women’s and academy sides – but, on the whole, the Fantastic Four of Evans, Mulchrone, Flannery and Jones have been left to crack on. And crack on they have.

“We are a different team now, playing with a lot more confidence,” says Jones. “The workload has upped a bit and it’s been challenging – which is great. We are all trying to share the workload as much as possible.

“Fla (Jerry Flannery) is the most experienced [coach], having worked under Rassie Erasmus. But, as a coaching group, we all played to a pretty high standard. While it doesn’t necessarily transfer, we have been able to draw on our playing experiences. It’s working well at the moment and the boys are playing well.”

One of those ‘boys playing well’ is club captain Stephan Lewies - “a hard-nosed South African who says it how it is”, says Jones. So well, in fact, that the club rewarded him this week with a new long-term contract. No one is better placed than Lewies to judge the work of Quins’ quartet of coaches.

“A huge amount of credit has to go to [them] for stepping up,” Lewies says. “Not a lot of teams would have given us a chance, so we only had one way to go. We spoke about it and we came out fighting.

“We haven’t changed much in terms of style from anything we did previously. It was just about sharpening that, growing closer as a group of players and playing for each other.”

Are there more disagreements when the team is effectively being run by committee? Not according to Lewies.

“They all coach different areas of the game,” he adds. “The team is picked by the coaches picking their different areas, with Nick and Charlie having a bigger say on the backs and Adam and Jerry the forwards.

“Obviously they debate it in their group and see what would work better against a particular opposition. There’s Billy adding value, too. And he brings a differing perspective.”

Millard has final say on any selection disputes, but his counsel has not yet been required in that domain. This quartet is harmonious but, despite that, it will be shaken up. The club are still hunting for a senior coach to lead them, with Millard due to return to his more general post. What role the incoming body plays – head coach or a more powerful head or director of rugby – remains to be defined, too.

Considering the acclaim that the four-part band have received, though, would introducing an outsider be unwise? Lewies is unsure.

“The main thing for a rugby club is to get results on the pitch and we are doing that,” he says. “The question is whether we can keep doing it and for how long. I’m not sure anyone could say now that they knew the answer. Hindsight is always easiest, so probably in the future we’ll know which call was best, but for now I don’t have an answer.”

While Lewies struggles to predict the future, Jones grapples with rationalising the present. Since Gustard, a man who was “always great” to Jones, upped sticks, the former Lions prop has not quite been able to explain the provenance of Quins’ resurgence. Except, “hard work”.

“It’s a weird one,” Jones says, “but look at football, for example, where they would usually bring someone like Sam Allardyce in and then go on a run. We haven’t quite done that yet, I’m not sure if Sam knows much about rugby, but the results speak for themselves.”

“We haven’t changed much in terms of style from anything we did previously. It was just about sharpening that, growing closer as a group of players and playing for each other.”

The Fantastic Four

With Lewies, The Quintet...

Interesting he name checks Flannery as having the most experience. He seems to have the makings of a head coach, maybe we could just employ a new defence coach and Flannery could step up? The coaching group obviously is working well as a team so why change it?

Without wishing to denigrate the fab four who I think are doing a great job I have the impression that we could have replaced Mr Gustard with a pot plant and seen an improvement.

Without wishing to denigrate the fab four who I think are doing a great job I have the impression that we could have replaced Mr Gustard with a pot plant and seen an improvement.

I do love these articles but the great care they take to praise Gustard and say "we've not really changed anything" does seem to be greatly at odds with our attacking approach, our discipline, and our success...!

In our first game (v Exe) we defended admirably against the recently knighted English and European Champions - for 65 minutes; our attack v Saints to win away scoring 49 points was fine - it was discipline and consistency that was lacking. The latter two aspects still need polishing, but they had the bare bones before he left, but only found consistency and a bit of discipline since he left: how much of this was reaction to him going and how much of the continuing success is (now) down to confidence?

Something wasn't working with Gustard and is working now - still not sure exactly what is the root of this.

It seems to me that Gussy was doing a lot right at the technical level but trying to be too much like Eddie in dictating the style of play. When he left, the coaches and senior players realised that they would need to take responsibility for performance - and fair play to them, they did so immediately and with results. The shift has been one of tone not content - letting talented players play what they see and be accountable to each other for performance.