Former Doncaster Knights boss makes surprise move to Championship rivals

Boden departed Castle Park in February, telling The Yorkshire Post he was disillusioned with the direction of the sport and he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Boden told Coventry’s official website: “I think Coventry is a great club, and it’s exciting for me to be at a place where there’s a true rugby following in the town and it’s really well supported.

“I specialise in the set-piece and forward stuff but I’ve also been lucky to work with some really good coaches and I’ve picked a lot from them to mix with my own style.

“If I’m brutally honest Coventry is a club that’s really frustrated me during my coaching career because I’ve not had many good experiences here as a visitor. It’s a great place to play because of the crowd and the rugby following.

“I know Alex Rae really well and have a great relationship with him. I also know Gordon Ross and James Scaysbrook and think straightaway we’ve got a really good connection as a coaching group.”

Boden’s departure from Doncaster earlier this year sent shockwaves through the second tier given the fact he had established them as a top-four club in his three and a half years in charge and that the Castle Park outfit is a well-run operation.

“I’ve left because I want to spend time with my family,” Boden told The Yorkshire Post in February. “I’ve left because, and this is no fault of the club because it’s a really well-run club, but the RFU are struggling to see positivity around the Championship.

“I’m looking at where rugby is and how it’s under-pinned by extremely wealthy businessmen and how that can crumble at any time.

“I went through administration with Leeds only four years ago, I’m looking for a bit more out of life.”

“I see rugby as unsustainable. I see full-time Championship rugby as unsustainable,” he continued.

“Don’t get me wrong, Doncaster is a really well-run club, it’s got guys that are passionate about the club in Tony DeMulder and Steve Lloyd. I couldn’t speak more highly of the club for what they’re doing for rugby in Yorkshire and for the community.

“But taking emotion out of the equation, all the clubs in the Championship have to ask, what are we striving for? Because it’s an unfair playing field.

“You can’t go up, because if you do you have to meet all these regulations, you’ve got to play a two-legged play-off final against a team with seven or eight times more resources than you, then if you do go up you get half the funding of everyone else and it will cripple the club financially to go up and try to compete.

“The governing body are making it that way. It used to be a case of ‘this is hard’. Now it’s a question of ‘why?’.

“And that’s the question I faced – why am I doing it?

“At the moment there’s too much uncertainty around professional rugby. I’ve witnessed that, having gone through administration. You’re constantly waiting to see what the RFU want to do, but I’ve been waiting for that for 12 years and at some point you’ve got to put yourself first.”