Since joining Northampton Saints’ coaching set-up ahead of the 2023/24 season, former rugby league player and coach Lee Redford has transformed the men in Black, Green and Gold’s defensive capability.
During a playing career which spanned 17 years, Radford made 158 appearances for Bradford Bulls in-between two spells at hometown club Hull FC (where he played 193 matches in total), and earned five international caps for England.
Radford became the youngest-ever player to represent Hull FC in 1998, and twice won the Super League Grand Final with Bradford Bulls in 2003 and 2005. He also reached two further Grand Finals (2004 and 2006), won the World Club Challenge in 2004, and claimed the Challenge Cup title in 2003.
Towards the end of his playing career, Radford was appointed Defence Coach at rugby union side Hull RUFC in National 2 North, winning the Yorkshire Cup title in 2011.
And once he hung up his boots permanently in 2011, Radford quickly ascended from an Assistant Coach role at Hull FC to Head Coach in 2013, winning back-to-back Challenge Cup titles in 2016 and 2017, and scooping the Super League’s Head Coach of the Year Award in 2016.
After leaving Hull FC, Radford took over as Castleford Tigers’ Head Coach from 2022 until 2023, and he was also appointed defence coach by Samoa for the Rugby League World Cup in 2022 – helping the side all the way to the Final where they were eventually beaten by Australia.
Radford arrived in Northampton in the summer of 2023, and quickly identified an imbalance as Saints were celebrated for their attack but notoriously fragile defensively. From the offset, he demanded the Club’s defensive DNA be made up of energy, effort, connection, and simple (but relentless) fundamentals.
He cultivated a defence that attacks the ball carrier as ferociously as Saints attack with ball-in-hand, and the results spoke for themselves, with Northampton claiming the Premiership title in his first year at the Club, and reaching the European Champions Cup Final the following campaign.
