Mike A. Ford (born 18 November 1965) is an English former rugby league player and current rugby union coach. He is the England national rugby union team's defence coach.

Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Ford played rugby league as a scrum half, playing for Wigan, Leigh, Wakefield Trinity, Castleford, South Queensland Crushers and Oldham. He won 10 caps for Great Britain.

He retired in 2001 as player-coach of Oldham. Whilst at Oldham, he started coaching rugby union at Dukinfield RUFC for 3 seasons, followed by a brief spell at Oldham RUFC. He left Oldham RUFC to take over as Defensive Co-ordinator of Ireland in January 2002. In September 2004 he started working as a defence and skills coach at Saracens F.C., before taking over as head coach.

He served as a defence coach on the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand, and left his position with Ireland in September 2005. He is now defence coach of England. England, with Ford as defensive coach, have played 39 test matches (up to the end of the 2009 6-nations tournament). They have lost 22 of these matches and won 17. In those 39 matches England conceded 939 points in total, an average of 24 points per game. Ford has presided as defensive coach for England 15 times against the 3 Tri-Nations sides, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. Out of those 15 matches England have won 2 matches (SA at Twickenham 23-21 and Australia in the RWC07 12-10). In those 15 matches against the 3 southern hemisphere teams England conceded 521 points in total, an average of 35 points conceded per match.

Ford is a Tigers Hall Of Fame Inductee.^[1]

Two of his sons currently play rugby union for England at under-18 and under-16 level.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• International Statistics at englandrl.co.uk
• Statistics at rugbyleagueproject.org
• Profile at thecastlefordtigers
• England RU profile