The European Rugby Challenge Cup will parade some new faces in the club hot seats in 2018/19. One of them is Harlequins head of rugby Paul Gustard, who we profile below. What is his coaching background? When the 42-year-old was announced as Harlequins’ head of rugby in May, it was his first such role and followed a highly impressive playing and coaching career. His playing days saw him make 98 appearances for Leicester, including a European Cup-winners’ medal in 2001, before playing a further 98 games for London Irish. He finished his playing career with nearly 50 matches for Saracens and was then named assistant first-team coach by Saracens’ head coach at the time, Eddie Jones. When Jones left a year later, director of rugby Brendan Venter appointed Gustard as the club’s defence and forwards coach. In 2016, after masterminding the much-praised ‘Wolfpack’ defence at the English club, Gustard linked up with Jones again as England’s defence coach. https://twitter.com/Harlequins/status/1028942248162091010 Who is in his coaching team? Gustard is surrounded by a group of coaches steeped in the Harlequins ethos, with Alex Codling (forwards), Mark Mapletoft (attack), Nick Evans (skills) and Adam Jones (scrum) all having played for the London club. However, like Gustard, Codling is a new arrival on the coaching front, having joined from English Championship runners-up and British & Irish Cup winners Ealing Trailfinders, where he had been head coach since the end of the 2015-16 season. New Zealander Evans and Welshman Jones moved upstairs immediately when they retired from outstanding playing careers, ex-All Blacks fly-half Evans in 2017 after amassing a club-record 2,249 points for Quins in nine years and double British and Irish Lions prop Jones at the end of last season. The longest-serving coach at The Stoop is Mapletoft, who returned in 2010 as backs coach. As a player, he represented Gloucester, London Irish, Saracens and Harlequins, and was capped at every level by England, before moving into coaching in 2005 with Saracens’ academy. He then spent four years with the RFU as a National Academy coach. What does he think of his new role? Gustard said in a statement announcing his appointment in May on the club website: “Opportunities like this don’t come along very often. To be given the chance to lead a club as rich in talent, heritage, and support as Harlequins is hugely exciting.”