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Joe Ford in temporary charge at crisis club Yorkshire after sacking of Martyn Wood

Joe Ford (Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)

Yorkshire Carnegie’s terrible season at the foot of the Championship has just gone from bad to worse, the Leeds-based club sacking director of rugby Martyn Wood. 

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The former Wasps and Bath scrum-half, who was capped twice for England by Clive Woodward in 2001, was handed the poison chalice of taking over Yorkshire just last summer but he is already past tense.

His side lost all 13 of their matches, seven in the league to leave them facing the threat of relegation to National One.  The lack of victories was no surprise, though, as Wood had minimal time to assemble a squad after the club switched to a part-time set-up.

All is not yet lost as Carnegie sit just seven points behind Bedford Blues on the table and hopes still exist that they can somehow turn around their fortunes now that they have elbowed aside Wood who had only joined in late July from Hull Ionians.

“Martyn joined Yorkshire Carnegie at a very difficult time for the club and he faced having to build a squad in a short space of time ahead of the current season,” said Chris Gibson, Yorkshire Carnegie managing director, in a statement. 

(Continue reading below…)

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“Regretfully, results have been disappointing and we find ourselves at the foot of the table facing a challenging second half of the season.

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“It is the ambition of everyone involved with Yorkshire Carnegie to retain our place in the league and with 15 games remaining the board felt that immediate changes needed to be made to give us the best chance of survival.

“We would like to thank Martyn for all he has contributed to the club and his hard work over a tough period and we wish him all the best for the future. Joe Ford will remain head coach and we will now aim to bring in a new director of rugby as soon as possible.”

Carnegie’s next match in the Championship is ironically away to second place Cornish Pirates, who now have New Zealander Chris Stirling as director of rugby after he stepped away from Yorkshire last April.  

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JW 15 minutes ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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