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Andy Taylor
Andy Taylor
Rugby

Chef Ferg cooking up a storm at Franklin’s Gardens

Matt Ferguson may not have been at Franklin’s Gardens long, but Saints’ new scrum coach is confident he is already making a mark.

Recruited from the England Women’s set-up by new director of rugby Chris Boyd, Ferguson arrived in Northampton as preseason began last month, and he admits he cannot help but be impressed by the effort his new charges are putting in.

“It’s been an outstanding start and the boys are working incredibly hard,” he said. “One of the exciting things for me is to actually be based at the ground that you’re playing at.

“Driving into the stadium, walking past the pitch every day is really inspiring. I’m really impressed and Franklin’s Gardens is a great place to come to work in the morning.”

As well as enjoying huge success with the RFU and England’s Women, stints within the men’s game at Cardiff Blues, Bristol, London Welsh, and London Irish have given Ferguson extensive knowledge of what really makes a scrum tick.

But when it comes to his coaching philosophy, the 39-year-old believes the recipe for success is to be flexible.

He said: “The most important thing as a scrum coach is to understand the ingredients you’ve got in the fridge – relating scrummaging to eating is a fairly good analogy!

“You have to look at the ingredients and then make the appropriate meal from those. There’s no point deciding that you want a Shepherd’s pie if you’ve got fruit and custard in the fridge!

“So the first thing I did, even before I started, was to look at the profile of our forwards we’ve got and try to come up with a philosophy and a way of playing which fits within that.

“As a coach you’ve then got to sell that to the players and that’s been the biggest excitement for me so far.”

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Hear more from Ferguson about his first few weeks at the Club here...

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