Poppy Leitch: The coach with an 'insane work ethic' setting the next generation alight

Six months into her playing career retirement, ex-England international and first centurion for Exeter Chiefs Poppy Leitch leads a powerhouse of women’s rugby as the current Programme Lead and Head Coach of Exeter University, and Head Coach of the newly established U23 Exeter Chiefs pathway.

She manages the development of around 180 young players, a staggering feat in itself, from sixth form Exeter College to contracted young pros at Chiefs, and across four teams at Exeter University (EURFC): a BUCS Super Rugby XV and second XV, a Championship 1 squad, and the Exeter ‘Otters’ social side.

The pathway is more than established, it is booming alongside a coach who encompasses an insane dedication and work ethic.

At only 28 years old, the common denominator amongst all this success appears to be Leitch herself, a young female coach with a clear vision of how to play the game and provide environments that produces young female rugby talent.

When it came to coaching, Leitch herself admitted it wasn’t a role she always saw herself in: “When I was at uni, I had no interest really in coaching. I just enjoyed playing. I was playing for Bristol Bears because that was our closest club at the time.

“When I finished my undergrad, I decided to do my PGCE at Exeter College. I got into some coaching because Exeter College had a girl’s programme, and that’s probably when I first started to think, ‘oh, actually maybe coaching is something that I would enjoy.’”

Leitch was primed as the successor to former Wallaroos head coach Joe Yapp at Exeter Uni as Yapp left to take up the top job at Worcester Warriors Women. However, she admits it was hard finding her feet transitioning from player to coach.

“I was 21 when I started and I was really, really, terrible.” she laughs. “I think I was quite naive to what the next 10 years of life was going to look like. I thought I’ll do a bit of coaching here and there. I’ll carry on playing rugby. Coaching won’t take over my life.

“The PWR obviously over the last couple of years has really taken off. So probably for the last two to three years of my playing career, I was essentially full-time coaching here and full-time playing in as much of a capacity as I could.

“And it wasn’t really feasible. I was doing it, but probably by my last year of playing, I didn’t feel like I was able to be the player that I wanted to be. Whenever I was at work, I was on the brink of burnout or not doing a good enough job. It’s juggling lots of plates.”

Leitch spoke candidly and with an admirable degree of self-reflection about her retirement, a move that was surprising and which many thought came too early in such a prolific career.

“I wasn’t expecting that to happen. I probably thought I was going to do one more year of weaning out of playing.

“Maybe they [Chiefs] felt that I’d hit my capacity as a player and ultimately it is the coach’s decision. It feels really unfair and it did feel unfair at the time, but ultimately a coach can make that choice.

“But I feel probably as much as it’s hard for me to process, it is the right thing to have happened. It’s just difficult when it’s not when you’re expecting it or it’s not on your terms. Obviously, Susie (Appleby, former Chiefs head coach) got let go and about two weeks later I was told I wasn’t going to get a contract.

“It all happened very quickly. But now, seven months down the line, I’m enjoying that I’m able to coach in a better capacity than I was able to last year.”

Retirement circumstances aside, she has attacked her new full-time coaching role with the same ferocity and diligence that she executed as a player. Her approach to coaching is intuitive and detail-focused, with emphasis on bringing out the well-rounded individual beyond the player.

“With the girls, I always say to them, I want to understand you as a person way before I want to understand you as a player. And I mean that unconditionally. Whether you’re a player that wants to play in the PWR or you’re a player that just wants to play socially, or you’re a player that only wants to play up until uni and then stop, I have to get to know all of those guys as people before I can potentially support them in the best way possible as a player.”

‘Stay curious, be authentic, respect each other, show no judgement’ is her philosophy.

Any follower of BUCS Super Rugby knows EURFC has consistently produced world class female rugby players, most recently the likes of Flo Robinson, Maisy Allen and Lizzie Hanlon, all alumni that have been named in the first Red Roses squad of the year this week.

The Exeter Chiefs U23 programme employs Chiefs players Alex Tessier, Emily Tuttosi, Emily Robinson and Flo Robinson, who contribute to coaching across the EURFC and Exeter College set up. The benefits of exposure to Premiership players at a young stage of development are huge, emphasises Leitch.

“Exeter College are getting coached every single week by who I personally feel are some of the best players in the Prem. I mean, Alex Tessier literally was up for World Player of the Year.

“You’ve got someone who played in a World Cup final (for Canada), felt what that felt like, but also came from a really challenging place where rugby just isn’t accessible in Canada. She [Tessier] hits a really nice note of, ‘you need to work hard to get to where you want to go. You’ve got to take advantage of the resources that you’re given. But you’ve also got to be grateful for the opportunities that you do get because it’s so different in other countries.’

“Then we essentially designed a five-month holistic workshop-based scheme with all the Under 23s that were identified (approx. 45 players). Each of those players got a booklet that focused on five different holistic skills that they need to work on for them to potentially become a PWR player.”

What is striking about the EURFC programme, is not only the investment from Leitch herself, who aims to spread her coaching across the four EURFC teams, but just how much the players buy in themselves.

Her newly promoted Championship 1 squad (previously named Exeter Athletic but this season incorporated under the EURFC umbrella), comprised of university and recent alumni who have remained in Exeter, playing in the second division of women’s rugby, has stormed the league, currently in a top three title fight for a play off position.

EURFC players can be rotated across the squads, having the opportunity to play in the week against the best of their fellow peers in BUCS Super Rugby, or at the weekend contend in top amateur senior rugby against established teams, often with players out on loan from Premiership clubs.

“They always play across both. 50 players have played in the Champ for us this year. Then about 40 have played in BUCS Super Rugby for us this year. They always play across because I think it’s important. They don’t see that one team is more important than the other. They are both really important, but for just different exposures.”

However, this is an unusual set up for a university side, and I asked why invest in a Championship team.

“It’s the best thing we ever did. It costs us a lot of money because we fund it all. The university don’t fund it. It comes from our memberships, which will be the same for every other club. But we don’t have a clubhouse. We don’t have a bar. We don’t have revenue coming in that way.

“So I’m selling soft drinks and cookies to try and cover our physio cost because that’s the only way that we can do it. So although we’ve got a lot from it, it’s challenged our club in a financial space, which means that we’ve had to make really good decisions.”

It begs the question why run this team at all, but Leitch asserted it’s benefits within the ecosystem of EURFC and the rugby pathways.

“It’s just a categorically different experience. I do think in the Champ the game is played slower, but I think that’s for different reasons. The referees we have in the Champ are still very set piece driven, especially at the scrum. I think they want the scrum to be a part of the game.

“Whereas at BUCS Super Rugby, we arguably have younger referees who are being encouraged to not allow scrums to take over the game. Our ball and play time in BUCS is far greater than our ball and play time at the Champ.

“The game, I would say, is more physical right now in the Champ when you look at like at the top four teams (referring to Richmond, London Irish, Exeter University and Old Albanian Saints in the Championship South 1).

“The Champ have way more experienced players. People just know how to orchestrate a game. They know how to play in the right places. They know how to manage a referee. They know how to manage conditions. Whereas in the BUCS league, it feels like all the players are figuring that out in the game because they’re all much newer. They’re far less experienced.”

Leitch sees the addition of the Championship squad as part of the Under 23 masterplan. An opportunity to blood young players into senior rugby and push skillsets outside of those offered in the university leagues.

“I think that traditionally people see the Champ as low-level amateur rugby, being brutally honest. I think that’s changing, but I think there’s still too much of that.

“My encouragement to PWR teams is invest in a Champ team. But make sure your Champ team is invested in a BUCS team. And that’s I personally think how it should work. Because also, we need these kids to play the right level of rugby at the right time. Under 23s need to be playing Under 23s rugby, ultimately, because they aren’t really physically able yet to play senior rugby week in, week out. We should be encouraging U23s to play in spaces that are driven by U23s structures, aka BUCS.”

 

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So far, this model appears to be working. The fast style of play the Exeter University team brings has put them on an eight-game winning streak, undefeated since October 2025.

And finally, Leitch was brought in as assistant coach for the newly reestablished England Students Women’s team that reformed in 2025. I nudged about what the future might hold for a successful elite female coach, the likes of which seems alarmingly absent from PWR and England set ups right now.

“I am open to next steps, not just in the southwest, anywhere, if there was an opportunity, but it would have to really be better than what my life is here. I do think there are lots of really amazing things about what I do here. International would be great, would it necessarily be England? But I’m also aware that I am still very young.

“I want people to watch the way that my players play and go, ‘oh, I want Poppy to coach because she coaches a version of rugby that looks exciting and it looks empowering, and it’s threatening and it works’.

“If we’re going to win the next World Cup (England), we’re not going to win in the same way we won this one. So we have to think what’s the new version of the way English rugby is played. The next players that are potentially going to win the next Rugby World Cup are the ones we are coaching now in this space, so if I’m not encouraging them to stay curious about the game, then I’m doing them a disservice.”

Leitch is undoubtedly one of the architects of the next generation. Her development of the EURFC programme to accommodate the rapid expansion of talented young players into the top tier of the game and the consolidation of player pathways not just for now, but future generations, is a celebration of why it is so important to have elite female players progress into elite coaches.

International rugby unions would be foolish not to have her on their radar. Both for her ferocious rapid style of rugby that she successfully coaches across interchangeable squads, and for her holistic attitude towards nurturing versatile female rugby players that will be instrumental in the future women’s game.