Boden quits Knights over lack of funding
FATIGUED by the ongoing uncertainty over funding and the direction of the Championship, Steve Boden has explained that the need to explore other opportunities away from the second tier of English rugby was behind his decision to quit as Doncaster DoR.
Boden, a former Championship hooker with Doncaster and Jersey Reds, is well respected and the short club statement that announced his departure on Monday was met with shock throughout the game, especially given his track record in three-anda-half seasons at Castle Park.
After finishing third in the Covid-affected 2020/21 season, Boden led the Knights to their best-ever finish of second the following year, having done the double over champions Ealing Trailfinders.
The 2022/23 campaign was a difficult one as a number of experienced players moved on and Boden’s youthful-looking
squad was hit hard by injuries but they still managed to end up in mid-table.
The Knights have been much improved this year and the 41-year-old leaves Doncaster in a healthy position of fourth in the Championship table with seven wins from 11 games.
“I wish Donny and Tony (de Mulder) and Steve (Lloyd) all the very best for the future, it’s a very wellrun club that I have a lot of emotional ties to, but I felt the time was right to step away,” he told TRP.
“I am looking at doing something different because I don’t think coaching in the Championship is sustainable with the way things stand. The funding is just not there to make it a viable, full-time league.
“I have had some great years at Doncaster as a player and coach, and it wasn’t an easy decision make. But, hopefully, I can still get down to Castle Park and enjoy a beer and a cow pie on the other side of the fence as a friend of the club.”
For someone as resilient as Boden to walk away from his job, speaks volumes for the undercurrent of frustration in the game below the top level as well as highlighting the all-consuming nature of the job.
As the father of two pre-school children, the need to spend more time with his family would no doubt have entered into his thinking, but Boden’s decision will also allow him to wait for the right opportunity to coach at a higher level, or start a more sustainable career away from the Championship.
Boden’s full-time coaching career began in Jersey over a decade ago when a neck injury forced him to retire from playing at the age of 30.
He then left to join Yorkshire Carnegie, his hometown club, and was part of Jimmy Lowes’ coaching team when the club reached the 2017 Championship play-off final.
Once Lowes left in June 2018, Boden was promoted to head coach under DoR Chris Stirling, and the Kiwi was a big fan of what his understudy brought to the game.
Speaking about Boden in January 2019, Stirling said: “I don’t think I have worked with anyone better and I am talking about the likes of Super Rugby coaches, especially around the set-piece, which has been his forte for a number of years.”
Following Carnegie’s financial meltdown, Boden moved to south Yorkshire to join Doncaster, for whom he made nearly 200 appearances in eight seasons, as forwards coach under Clive Griffiths.
A year later Griffiths parted company with the Knights and Boden stepped up to lead the club into a new era.
Navigating the Covid-affected season and managing a full-time squad on tight budgets made it a difficult task. But Boden can be happy with the legacy he has left at Castle Park, and throughout rugby, as the numerous players who have all earned Premiership contacts whilst being coached by him, will testify.
Knights’ experienced fly-half Sam Olver, below left, is certainly sad to see him go. “He came in about six months after me and transformed the place and made it a lot more of a professional outfit, and the coaching level went up,” said the former Northampton and Moseley player.
“His big thing was to help players go on to play at the next level, to use Doncaster as a stepping stone. You have seen that with the likes of Sam Graham, John Kelly and Josh Peters, so credit to him. around.
“He’s a really good bloke; he’s a very honest bloke and as a player that’s exactly what you want – you want someone that won’t beat around the bush, won’t tell you things that won’t necessarily happen.”
It is thought that current Knights head coach, Joe Ford, will lead the coaching team in Boden’s absence from now until the end of the season.