Former Leeds Rhinos assistant Sean Long left Featherstone Rovers this week and was expected to join Sam Burgess at Warrington Wolves and he has joined a Super League club but not Warrington.
On Monday, Featherstone Rovers parted company with Sean Long after rumours had circulated about Long taking up the assistant coach role at Warrington alongside Sam Burgess.
After that announcement, Warrington confirmed Sam Burgess would be taking on the role as Head Coach with Richard Marshall as his assistant and another assistant yet to be appointed.
Everyone assumed this would be Long but that hasn’t been the case with Long now being confirmed as joining a different club.
He has joined Wakefield Trinity with immediate effect.
The club have announced the appointment of former Featherstone Rovers Head Coach Long as their new Assistant Coach. For the rest of the 2023 season and 2024.
Head Coach, Mark Applegarth, has said “I’m delighted to have Sean on the coaching staff for the remaining six games and next season.”
“He brings a wealth of experience with him and I think he will add real value to our coaching and playing group. I feel like we will compliment each other well.”
The incoming Long says he is “thrilled to be joining Wakefield at such a crucial point for them in the season. We had a good chat about what Mark felt I could bring to the club.”
“Wakefield are now firmly in the business end of the season and every performance counts, I can’t wait to get out on the field with Mark and the team.”
After Long’s exit, Featherstone said:
“We can confirm that we have today reached agreement with Head Coach Sean Long to part company with immediate effect.
“The Club has invested significantly this year to ensure that we give ourselves the best possible chance of promotion to Super League in 2023. The changes in rules that come into effect from 2024 make it extremely difficult to reach this goal in future years so we are committed to ensure that we leave no stone unturned in delivering this objective. The Board have backed this ambition by investing in a playing squad of Super League quality and have been disappointed therefore in this season’s team performance against some of our promotion rivals.
”As we reach the countdown to the play-off series, we need to ensure that we maximise the huge potential and high quality of our playing roster and we feel this change will enable us to make the required step up which is required
“We would like to place on record our thanks to Sean Long for his contribution to the Club’s efforts this season and wish him well in the future. We would ask our fans to continue to support the Club in their usual way just as they did in such large numbers at Halifax yesterday, we certainly will need their support in hopefully helping us to get over the line this year
“We have asked Director of Rugby James Ford to take up the Head Coaching role on an interim basis for the remainder of the year along with Ian Hardman, the Club will make a further assessment of whether we need to invest further in our coaching team.”
