Report: Toby Booth set to return to PREM Rugby

The Daily Telegraph are reporting that Toby Booth is set to join Harlequins as head coach for the 2025/26 season, while the club looks for a long-term successor to Danny Wilson.

Quins need a new head coach after Wilson landed a job with the WRU, as Wales’ men’s defence coach, having been seconded to the team for the summer tour to Japan.

Booth’s expertise as a forwards coach and experience of the league could make it a match made in heaven, even if it is only a stopgap solution.

For the past month, the 45-year-old has been working as a part-time consultant for Hong Kong China in the build-up to their first Rugby World Cup appearance in 2027.

However, the prospect of coaching in the Premiership again, more than five years after he left Quins to take on the top job at Ospreys, is bound to appeal.

Booth is still based just outside of Bath, so south-west London is within relatively easy reach, and it is the sort of high-profile job that is in keeping with his CV.

He first made his name at London Irish, guiding the Exiles to the Premiership final in 2009, losing by a point to Leicester, before enjoying stints as an assistant at Bath and then Quins.

At Ospreys, Booth won praise for steering the region to the URC Welsh Shield in both the 2021/22 and 2023/24 seasons, despite a plethora of challenges on and off the field.

Newly-promoted General Manager Andrew Sanger has been leading the rugby operation at Quins since it was announced Wilson was heading west.

But now Booth is said to be coming in, on the eve of the season, to head up the coaching team that includes Jason Gilmore (defence), Nick Evans (attack), Adam Jones (scrum) and Matt Ferguson (transition).