6:14pm, 31 December 2019

Yorkshire Carnegie’s terrible season at the foot of the Championship has just gone from bad to worse, the Leeds-based club sacking director of rugby Martyn Wood.

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The former Wasps and Bath scrum-half, who was capped twice for England by Clive Woodward in 2001, was handed the poison chalice of taking over Yorkshire just last summer but he is already past tense.

His side lost all 13 of their matches, seven in the league to leave them facing the threat of relegation to National One. The lack of victories was no surprise, though, as Wood had minimal time to assemble a squad after the club switched to a part-time set-up.

All is not yet lost as Carnegie sit just seven points behind Bedford Blues on the table and hopes still exist that they can somehow turn around their fortunes now that they have elbowed aside Wood who had only joined in late July from Hull Ionians.

“Martyn joined Yorkshire Carnegie at a very difficult time for the club and he faced having to build a squad in a short space of time ahead of the current season,” said Chris Gibson, Yorkshire Carnegie managing director, in a statement.

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“Regretfully, results have been disappointing and we find ourselves at the foot of the table facing a challenging second half of the season.

“It is the ambition of everyone involved with Yorkshire Carnegie to retain our place in the league and with 15 games remaining the board felt that immediate changes needed to be made to give us the best chance of survival.

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“We would like to thank Martyn for all he has contributed to the club and his hard work over a tough period and we wish him all the best for the future. Joe Ford will remain head coach and we will now aim to bring in a new director of rugby as soon as possible.”

Carnegie’s next match in the Championship is ironically away to second place Cornish Pirates, who now have New Zealander Chris Stirling as director of rugby after he stepped away from Yorkshire last April.

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