{"id":593897,"date":"2026-04-08T18:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/593897\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T18:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:07:08","slug":"england-full-back-george-furbank-heads-for-harlequins-in-lucrative-switch-harlequins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/593897\/","title":{"rendered":"England full-back George Furbank heads for Harlequins in lucrative switch | Harlequins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Underperforming Harlequins<\/a> have confirmed the signing of England\u2019s full-back George Furbank as they seek to rebuild their squad for next\u00a0season.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Furbank has been an influential figure at Northampton<\/a>, the league leaders, but a lucrative contract offer has persuaded him to try his luck in south-west London.<\/p>\n

While Furbank has been sidelined through injury for lengthy chunks of the past two years, he remains a \u00adquality operator with 14 \u00adinternational caps who looks certain to be a \u00admember of England\u2019s World Cup squad. Quins, second-bottom of the 10-team Prem, will be hoping he can have an \u00adimmediate impact on their fortunes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been at Saints since I was 14-15 years old so it will be a different challenge, but I am keen to step out of my comfort zone,\u201d he said. \u201cI am hoping playing with a new group and under a new coaching staff is going to be refreshing and take my game to a new level. There is a lot here that is exciting for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Harlequins head coach, Jason Gilmore, is clearly a fan \u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s someone we\u2019ve admired for a long time\u201d \u2013 but it leaves a sizeable hole for Northampton to fill.<\/p>\n

Saints have said that retaining all their England squad members is increasingly a juggling act as fast-rising talents such as Henry Pollock shoot to \u00adprominence and seek a pay rise. It helps explain why Furbank is joining David \u00adRibbans, Lewis Ludlam, Courtney Lawes and Teimana Harrison on the lengthy list of big-name departures over recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to keep George and I think he probably wanted to stay,\u201d said Phil Dowson, Saints\u2019 director of rugby. \u201cBut there\u2019s lots of other context around it that has to work for him and us and unfortunately we couldn\u2019t do that. At no point was there any \u00adanimosity. It\u2019s just one of those things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to make an offer, but other clubs who are desperate for players will pay the money that potentially gets him out. If Saints suddenly had a multimillion-pound backer that might change things, but they don\u2019t so we make decisions based on the financial situation at the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not always the right thing to keep a group entirely together. That\u2019s what Sir Alex Ferguson did so well. He let some people go and he kept some others for a very long time. Furbs is one of those guys we would have loved to have kept longer, but we\u2019ve had to make some very difficult decisions. It\u2019s a moving jigsaw puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saints are set to welcome back their fit-again England half-backs Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell to their matchday squad for Friday\u2019s Champions Cup semi-final against Bath at the Rec.<\/p>\n

Smith has been recovering after failing a head injury assessment against Saracens last month while Mitchell has not played since \u00addamaging a hamstring against Ireland in the Six Nations <\/a>in February.<\/p>\n

The Quins fly-half Jamie \u00adBenson, meanwhile, has opted to move to Ulster next season. Benson, who is Irish-\u00adqualified, has made 38 \u00adappearances for Quins since \u00adgraduating from the club\u2019s academy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Underperforming Harlequins have confirmed the signing of England\u2019s full-back George Furbank as they seek to rebuild their squad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-593897","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\/593897","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=593897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}