Dorian West to leave Saints

Northampton Saints has confirmed that forwards coach Dorian West will be leaving the Club by mutual consent at the end of the 2017/18 season.

The 50-year-old originally joined the set-up at Franklin’s Gardens in 2007, and alongside Jim Mallinder helped guide the Club back into the top flight of English rugby and on to a series of trophies and titles – including claiming the Aviva Premiership crown in 2014.

West is one of the longest-serving coaches in the Premiership, but due to this season’s results the Saints board agreed that a change was in the best interest of the club.

West was part of the coaching set-up that clinched trophies for three seasons running at the start of his Franklin’s Gardens tenure.

Saints bounced straight back into the Aviva Premiership at the first time of asking in 2008, winning a National League One and National Trophy double en route, before securing the European Challenge Cup and the LV= Cup in the seasons that followed.

The 2011 season will live long in Saints supporters’ memories as Northampton came within a whisker of claiming the Heineken Cup, mounting a run all the way to the final in Cardiff.

But West’s greatest coaching achievement would come the following season, with Saints lifting the Aviva Premiership trophy for the first time in 2014, having fallen just short in the final the previous year.