Sean Long has left Harlequins with immediate effect

Assistant coach Sean Long has left Harlequins following last Sunday's conclusion of the London club's 2019/20 Premiership season with a win at Leicester. The former England and Britain rugby league was recruited by Paul Gustard in July 2019 to finesse Quins' attack. 

He was part of the backroom overhaul that has happened in the past two years since Gustard took over the reins from John Kingston. However, the ex-league scrum-half has left just over a year later.

Long explained: “It is with a heavy heart that I leave Harlequins – it has been a very unusual year but I have loved being around the team and the talent across the coaching and playing squad gives me real confidence for Quins in the future. 

"I will continue to follow the progress of Harlequins from afar and thank everyone at the club for their support as I made this difficult decision”.

Boss Gustard added: “It has been a pleasure working with Sean. He has a huge and infectious personality and has been a positive influence within the group. He will always be welcome back at The Stoop and we wish him all the very best for the future."

Harlequins' form since the restart has been inconsistent, the low point arriving at Worcester when Gustard commented: “I’m embarrassed. We never saw that coming. That’s not to say we are an arrogant team and we think that we are going to dominate teams physically.

"But the team that we picked, we didn’t think we picked people that were going to get steamrollered, but that’s exactly what happened. Our general play in the first half, we got bullied when we carried the ball.

“Everyone is hurting. That first 40 minutes is one of the lowest points of my coaching career. We never got to fire a shot, we were on the back foot all the time. It was a sobering 40 minutes for sure.”

Harlequins finished the season in sixth position, winning ten of their 22 league matches.