Toby Booth (born 6 February 1970) is an English

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

coach, currently head coach at Ospreys in the

Pro14 The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...

. He was educated at The Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, a prominent

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

-playing school. He became a qualified electrician, before attending St. Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill (1994–97), where he studied Sports Science. He later worked as a lecturer there whilst completing his MSc.

Coaching career

Booth joined

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club which competes in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club has also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While ...

in 2002 as assistant academy manager where he helped recruit the first players for the academy – many of whom are now playing for the Exiles' and Bath's first teams. After coming through the ranks at the academy he was appointed head coach at London Irish in 2008 after the previous coach, Brian Smith, became an coach. Booth's team reached the final of the Guinness Premiership in his first season in charge after finishing third in the league. They went on to finish sixth (twice) and seventh. In May 2012 Booth left London Irish for Bath to work under new head coach Gary Gold as forwards' coach, two months after Smith's return to the Exiles as director of rugby. In November 2019 he joined Harlequins as assistant coach. It was announced in February 2020 that Booth would be joining Ospreys as head coach at the end of the 2019/2020 season.

Personal life

Whilst being interviewed on

Sky Sports News Sky Sports News (SSN) is a British pay television, paid television sports news channel run by Sky Limited, Sky, a division of Comcast. History Since 1992, Sky Sports had broadcast sports news, initially a brief ''Football Update'' and lat ...

, Booth mentioned he is a

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

supporter.

References

External links

London Irish profile
English rugby union coaches Living people People educated at The Harvey Grammar School 1970 births Ospreys (rugby union) coaches {{England-rugbyunion-bio-stub