Canterbury Rugby Club are back in training with a new head coach.

Matt Corker has taken over in the role and replaces Andy Pratt, who left the club in May.

Pratt was made redundant because of the Coronavirus crisis which left the club struggling to stay afloat but the decision to make a change to the coaching department had already been made before his departure.

The new structure in place at Canterbury is one of the former head coach's ideas, says the chairman Giles Hilton.

Mr Hilton said: “This structure we have in place was actually the structure that Andy Pratt suggested before we had to unfortunately make him redundant.

“Andy was going to concentrate more on the community role which we were not doing as much as we should have. The dreaded Covid-19 led to us as a sport club making a couple of redundancies, as many businesses are doing at this time.

“Matt brings a huge degree of depth to the job, a lot of experience, having played first class rugby and he absolutely gets our culture.

“Like Andy he is a local boy, born and bread, so we keep that Kentish local feel.”

Corker, originally from Broadstairs, has been playing for the club over the past few seasons. He's previously played for London Wasps and Richmond.

Former Deal & Betteshanger and Blackheath player Danny Herriott, who spent several years in the academy at Northampton Saints, is one of those assisting the new head coach.

The club are holding a working part this weekend to prepare the club for reopening.

Training is currently by invite only with players and coaches socially distanced at the Tuesday evening sessions.

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