Gary Street steps down as coach of England women’s rugby union team

Gary Street is looking for a new job after leaving the Rugby Football Union and his position of the head coach of England Women less than six months after leading the team to a first World Cup title and 13 days before the start of the Six Nations.

The RFU and Street said in a joint statement the decision was made by mutual consent. It followed a review of the World Cup campaign by the RFU’s performance department, which reported earlier this month and recommended changes if England were to mount a successful World Cup defence in 2017.

England have failed to win the Six Nations for the past two years after seven successive titles, six of which were grand slam campaigns, and while they won the World Cup, their nemeses New Zealand failed to qualify for the knockout stage after a surprise defeat by Ireland.

It is understood that Street, who took over as head coach in 2007, was asked to carry on for the Six Nations campaign, having already had a squad session this month with the players reporting again for duty on Thursday before the 8 February opener against Wales in Swansea, but decided to leave immediately, saying he wanted to “explore new challenges having achieved everything I set out to do”.

He was unavailable to elaborate on the statement but inserted on his Linkedin page: “Looking for a new challenge.” The 47-year-old was at the end of last year named the high performance coach of the year and the overall coach of the year at the UK coaching awards in Glasgow.

Street’s assistant coach, Graham Smith, will leave his position at the end of the Six Nations and the role of head coach will be assumed by the RFU’s head of performance (women), Nicky Ponsford, until a full-time appointment is made. She said: “We would like to thank both Gary and Graham for their outstanding contributions to women’s rugby, which has seen significant and unparalleled success in that time.

“Many of those players who won [the World Cup] in Paris last year have been developed and coached by Gary and Graham throughout their entire playing careers. However, we all felt the time was right to make some changes within the women’s programme as we look to rebuild the team ahead of the next World Cup in 2017.”

Maggie Alphonsi, who was part of the World Cup-winning team, tweeted: “Sad news to hear that Gary Street is stepping down as England head coach and Graham Smith is stepping down at the end of the Six Nations.”