Devil Flanagan will be gone in a Flash!
SALFORD coach Ian Watson has heaped praise on Mark Flanagan after the 32-year-old confirmed he will retire at the end of the season.
The loose forward will call time on a career that has seen him play in the NRL for Wests Tigers, win a Grand Final with St Helens in 2014 and become a key part of the Red Devils squad that prevailed in the 2016 Million Pound Game and stormed to Old Trafford last year.
“I’m 32 now and I’ve had a few niggling injuries,” he explained.
“It’s probably time. It would be great to finish on a high with Salford, but I’m content with the career I’ve had – I’ve probably surpassed all my wildest dreams.”
A Saddleworth Rangers junior,
Flanagan joined Bradford Bulls at 16, but was brought to Wigan by Brian Noble before making an appearance at Odsal.
After two years in the NRL, he returned to Super League with Saints, before arriving at the AJ Bell Stadium ahead of the 2016 season.
And Watson revealed he took advice from a former Swinton, Rochdale and Oldham forward when looking to overhaul the culture at the Red Devils.
“Flash was the first leader that I went after to sign,” he explained. “I played rugby with a friend of mine, Wes Rogers, for a long, long time and I was talking to him about Mark Flanagan.
“He said ‘he’s committed, he works really hard, he never quits, he doesn’t give in’. That was the kind of person that I wanted to come in and
lead us when we started changing the status quo of what Salford was about.
“I knew I had to do that with certain people and Flash was that guy – and Flash has been that guy for the five years that I’ve been here.
“Obviously, we’ve been able to bring some more leaders in since then, but Flash was the original one who came in with a mentality to change this club’s culture and environment. He has done that and he’s done it to the highest possible standards. He’s been brilliant, he’s been first class.”
Flanagan has business interests outside of the sport – notably the Manchester coffee shop he runs with former St Helens team-mate Jon Wilkin – but Watson believes he could remain within rugby league if he wished to do so.
He said: “Flash could be very good at coaching, but I was speaking to him the other day – I think he would be great on the TV.
“He’s a really smart bloke when it comes to football and he’d go really well in terms of the media, but he could definitely coach.”