- Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty was once again signed by Sentinels
- He was searching for a player position for months, but instead became the Sentinels’ coach
- This took months of negotiations with FaZe
After months of negotiations between Sentinels and FaZe, Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty has finally rejoined Sentinels as the team’s new head coach.
Rawkus Is Back in Sentinels
In the world of esports, just like in the world of traditional sports, it is not uncommon for players and coaches to often be traded between organizations. Sometimes even it happens that players or staff go back to the organization they started with. Such is the case for Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty who was recently re-hired by Sentinels as head coach of their VALORANT team.
The relationship between Rawkus and the Sentinels runs back to 2021 when the team got their first coach loaning Rawkus from his previous Team FaZe Clan. However, this relationship was cut short after the 2021 VCT Champions final. While in FaZe, Rawkus played the role of initiator (Sova) but left the team after their loss in the Last Chance Qualifier.
The Contract Took Months of Negotiations
The re-signing of Rawkus was not an easy one, as it involved a lot of back-and-forth talks between FaZe and Sentinels. A portion of that was because FaZe had recently revamped their VALORANT roster, which included hiring new support staff like coaches and data analysts.
The problems reach back a couple of months. In late February Rawkus explained in a TwitLonger that he would be changing all of his social media back to include FaZe Clan as part of his contract. He also explained he will be looking for a player position on another team. “I've stated publicly that I only ever considered coaching because of the people who were involved and the environment that I was joining made it a perfect fit for me,” Rawkus explained.
Despite this, Rawkus was not able to find a spot as a player on any other team. The contract challenges between FaZe and Sentinels did not help that. In the end, the VALORANT pro re-joined Sentinels as their head coach. This is yet another change for Sentinel’s roster, which previously replaced long-term member Jared “zombs” Gitlin with Eric “Kanpeki” Xu. The team recently tried to qualify for the main event for VCT Challengers 2 but fell short at the finish line.
With their most recent changes, Sentinels hope they will be able to overturn their recent bad luck.
