Loughborough announce temporary coaching shake-up ahead of Lightning season

Loughborough Lightning head coach Nathan Smith will spend the WXV Global Series campaign on secondment with Canada.

Between September and October, Lightning assistant coach Rachel Taylor will lead the East Midlands club in their JAECOO PWR Next Gen Cup fixtures against Sale Sharks, Saracens, Exeter Chiefs and Leicester Tigers.

Former Wales captain, Taylor, was previously head coach of Sale Sharks before she joined Loughborough as an assistant coach in 2025.

Smith was preciously seconded to Kévin Rouet’s coaching staff with Canada for this year’s Pacific Four Series campaign, where he led the team’s lineout.

After fixtures against the Wallaroos, Black Ferns and USA Women’s Eagles, Canada finished second in the four-team competition.

In the months since his first spell with Canada, Smith has recruited six Canada internationals for the 2026/27 JAECOO Premiership Women’s Rugby campaign; Pamphinette Buisa, Chloe Daniels, Brooke Rempel, Kiki Idowu, Rachel Smith and Florence Symonds.

Across the next 10 weeks the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 runners-up will play Scotland, England and France in Europe, before two more Tests against the Red Roses in Toronto and Ottawa.

Those five Test matches are some of the most challenging across the WXV Global Series period, with three clashes against the Red Roses set to push Rouet’s squad to its limit.

Smith said: “Once more, I am grateful to Loughborough University for allowing me to go away on secondment, and to Canada for extending the opportunity. I returned from my first secondment enriched and a better coach for the experience.

“I am confident that it will go up another level this time, as challenges do not get much bigger in women’s rugby than preparing a side to face the Red Roses three times, as well as playing in four different countries across my time away.

“I leave the Lightning team in extremely capable hands. Tails [Taylor] is a former Head Coach at PWR level and is a very capable operator, as is Matt Campbell, who worked with much of the group that will form the Lightning squad during this period in Loughborough University’s BUCS Super Rugby Milk Championship?winning campaign last season.”