{"id":180468,"date":"2025-09-30T16:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180468\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:51:10","slug":"quins-boss-reacts-to-chandler-cunningham-south-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180468\/","title":{"rendered":"Quins boss reacts to Chandler Cunningham-South speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Harlequins\u2019 new boss Jason Gilmore has revealed that tying down Chandler Cunningham-South<\/a> is top of his to-do list, with Sale<\/a> pursuing the explosive England<\/a> back row.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old is out of contract at the end of the season and, as one of Quins\u2019 primary ball carriers, they are desperate to retain him.<\/p>\n

But Gilmore, who was promoted to Senior Coach at The Stoop after the abrupt departure of Danny Wilson to the Wales<\/a> set-up, acknowledges they have a fight on their hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s obviously going to be a player that people want, isn\u2019t he? When he\u2019s off contract, he\u2019s going to be in high demand. If I was at an outside club, I\u2019d be looking at him as well. There aren\u2019t too many boys built with his power,\u201d said the Australian defence specialist.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s raw, but he\u2019s learning, and his ceiling is so high still. We definitely want to keep him; he\u2019s a really big part of our team. Hopefully, he feels comfortable at the club, and he can see that we can develop him, but he\u2019s definitely going to be in high demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve only just got my feet under the desk. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in the background \u2013 I haven\u2019t been privy to those conversations, but I\u2019ll definitely be catching up with our recruitment department to see where that\u2019s sitting because he\u2019s going to be in high demand and we don\u2019t want to lose him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cunningham-South, who took his England cap tally to 17 on the summer tour to Argentina<\/a> and the USA, joined Quins two years ago from London Irish.<\/p>\n

Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson, who prised promising hooker Nathan Jibulu<\/a> away from Quins in the summer, denied having made an approach to Cunningham-South but confirmed he is on the club\u2019s radar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a few that we\u2019re talking to next year. Any good back rower \u2013 and it all depends on our own retention \u2013 we\u2019ll get in touch and have a chat with,\u201d said Sanderson.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow we play the game, how we want to play the game, we\u2019re looking at carry dominance as being a major feature as part of their repertoire, shall we say. Chandler\u2019s (numbers) are up there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t had a chat to him yet, personally. These rumours tend to spread through the changing room and out sometimes even before anything actually happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harlequins\u2019 new boss Jason Gilmore has revealed that tying down Chandler Cunningham-South is top of his to-do list,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-180468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}