Castleford Tigers appoint Matty Faulkner as women's head coach and club eduction and pathway manager: He has previous experience with Hull KR and Hull FC

Faulkner, 27, also becomes the club’s education and pathway manager.

Currently the analyst for England’s women, Faulkner worked as a community coach for Hull KR, as well as with their scholarship and academy teams.

He was part of the combined City of Hull academy’s scouting and recruitment team and then joined Hull FC in a player performance management role.

Of his latest move, he said: “I’m excited to be joining Castleford Tigers.

“I’ll be doing recruitment for our college programme as education and pathway manager and as head coach of the women we’re going to build a girls’ programme so we have a pathway for girls to come through and be Tigers players.

“It’s time for me to move on to something different and try my hand at something new in a new area, give myself another challenge.

“That is the reason I’m joining Cas.

“I want to make a difference to what we do, support the coaching team and lead the women’s team as best I can.”

Faulkner has been part of the England women’s set-up since 2017.

“It has given me some of the best experiences of my life in rugby league, touring Papua New Guinea and going to France the other month,” he reflected.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with them.

“A big part of my decision was how easy it is and what a good group of women the players are to work with; it helped make my decision to come to Cas and support the women’s game this way.

“If I can do it from a ground-level up into England, hopefully, we can produce even more England Women’s players coming through at Cas.”

Tigers topped the Women’s Super League table in 2019, but have since lost a host of players following coach Lindsay Anfield’s departure to York City Knights.

Faulkner said he is keen to develop a pathway for young players into the women’s side.

“It’s something that may have lacked over the last year or so with girls bouncing between different clubs, or clubs taking different players,” he said.

“If we can produce our own, I think that will be the goal moving forward.

“I’m hoping we can get Cas Women to where they were, raise some standards and the girls who are here obviously want to play for Castleford.

“That is the main thing, you want players to want to play for Cas Tigers and be on that pathway to help Cas win games, get in that play-off picture and hopefully compete in that top league.”

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