Yet his greatest impact has been in nurturing the club’s crop of young players who were stagnating under the previous management. Academy products Lewis Ludlam, George Furbank, Alex Mitchell, Ollie Sleightholme and Tommy Freeman have all come into recent England squads under Eddie Jones who is known to highly value opinion of Boyd, among the greatest intellects in the game. 

Also part of his remit when he joined the club in 2018 was to develop a core of young English coaches including Dowson and Vesty, the former Leicester fly-half, who was briefly seconded by Jones as an assistant coach for the 2017 tour to Argentina. 

Hooper’s struggles at Bath as director of rugby have shown the dangers of entrusting complete authority to a rookie head coach. Geordan Murphy’s departure as Leicester director of rugby also serves as a cautionary tale on lack of experience.

However, Borthwick at Leicester and Skivington at Gloucester have demonstrated that young coaches can be successful in their own right. Keeping Boyd on board as a consultant should provide a further safety net. 

Boyd desire to return to New Zealand has been heightened by the Covid restrictions on travel which has made it hard for him to fly back to see his grandchildren. It is not clear whether Boyd will be able to return for in-person visits as Brendan Venter did as a consultant after he stepped down as Saracens director of rugby. 

Northampton have yet to issue a public comment but are expect to make an announcement this week.