Steve Boden breaks silence over why he quit Doncaster – report

Steve Boden has shed light on his surprise decision last week to quit as Doncaster Knights’ director of rugby. The Yorkshire club were placed second behind Ealing Trailfinders in the Championship, but Boden has now stepped away after three and a half years at the helm, claiming disillusionment over the way the RFU are treating the second-tier division.

Central funding for the Championship club has been hugely reduced in recent years and amid the ongoing controversy over the RFU’s intention to introduce a Premiership 2 league, Boden, who guided Doncaster to finishes of second, sixth and third on a shoestring budget, has opted out.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, he said: “I have left because I want to spend time with my family. I have 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 is underpinned 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. Don’t get me wrong, Doncaster is a really well-run club, it’s got guys that are passionate about the club in Tony de Mulder and Steve Lloyd. I couldn’t speak more highly of the club for what they are 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 is too much uncertainty around professional rugby. I have witnessed that, having gone through administration. You are constantly waiting to see what the RFU want to do but I have been waiting for that for 12 years, and at some point you have got to put yourself first."