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Cheltenham Saracens chairman Jimmy O’Shea pays tribute to departing coaches Billy Burns and Jacob Rowan

Author: Roger Jackson, Posted: Thursday, 12th July 2018, 11:20

Billy Burns and Jacob Rowan (on right of picture) celebrate the club’s Cheltenham Combination cup success in 2017

Cheltenham Saracens chairman Jimmy O’Shea couldn’t be happier for Billy Burns after it was announced that he was leaving Gloucester for Ulster, even though it leaves his club with a big hole to fill.

Fly-half Burns and ex-Gloucester back row Jacob Rowan have been coaching the Gloucester Premier club for the past three seasons but now both are leaving the area.

The club knew that Rowan would not be returning to Kingsholm this season but the news this week that Burns is switching to Ulster came as a bigger surprise.

“We’d rather they were still with us for this season but they’ve been great for Saracens,” said O’Shea.

“They’ve been fantastic, you couldn’t meet two nicer lads. They became a big part of the club and they always had their feet on the round. They mixed in well with all the lads.

“They got involved with the running of the club and they were good coaches too as you can see by our results over the past two or three seasons. We’ve come on in leaps and bounds.

“If you’ve got coaches you can attract a good calibre of player.

“The most important thing about coaching is that the players need to enjoy it and we never had a complaint about Billy and Jake, the players were always very happy with them.

“Best of luck to both of them.”

O’Shea has confirmed that Saracens are in talks with two Gloucester players to take over from Burns and Rowan.

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Cheltenham Saracens chairman Jimmy O’Shea pays tribute to departing coaches Billy Burns and Jacob Rowan

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