Sale Sharks have appointed former Leicester Tigers Women’s coach Luke Stratford as the club’s new Women’s Scrum Coach.
The Jersey-born 30-year-old was Head Coach at Longlevens RFC as well as a Rugby Coach at Hartpury University before joining Tigers in 2023. He also has experience as forwards coach at Cirencester RFC.
Former hooker Luke’s playing career saw him come through the age grades and play first team rugby at former Championship side Jersey Reds, before spending eight years at Hartpury.
Luke was part of new Sharks Head Coach Tom Hudson’s coaching team at Leicester Tigers and will join Sale at the end of the current PWR season.
Luke said: “I watched a podcast with Michelle Orange last year and her enthusiasm and passion was obvious to see. So when the chance came to join Tom and work at Sale, it was an easy decision.
“There’s so much talent and ambition in this squad and everything is in place to achieve big things. It’ll take lots of hard work but I’m confident we can do it.
“I feel Tom and I make a good team and work really well together and I’m really looking forward to getting started.”
Sale Sharks Women’s Performance Lead Katy Daley-Mclean said: “Luke is a fantastic young coach and he’s been working alongside Tom at Leicester so they’ve got that partnership in place already.
“That was a huge factor for us because we didn’t want to create a coaching group from scratch. We wanted coaches who know how the others work and can get the best out of each other and the players.
“Luke will add a huge level of detail to the technical side of our scrummaging and upskilling our front row players in particular. It’s an area we feel we’ve been short in, so this is a really key appointment for us.”
