New Doncaster Knights head coach Darren Fearn on journey to top job and realising Yorkshire club's Premiership ambition

Doncaster are, and Lloyd - having invested a small fortune in the club along with Tony de Mulder over the decades - is of an age where he finally wants to see his project in the promise land.

Even when Joe Ford, their fashionable young head coach left for Sale at the start of the close season, there was no cause for panic.

With Sir Ian McGeechan already in situ as director of rugby, Lloyd and the board eschewed the opportunity to chase another big name to fill the vacancy, and instead looked within - as they had with Ford and before him, Steve Boden.

Step forward - or step up as is the case - Darren Fearn, a 36-year-old former Premiership prop who had served last season as Doncaster’s forwards coach.

“Yes it’s my first time being a head coach in the Championship, but I’ve spent most of my coaching career as a head coach with the University of Northumbria, England Students,” he says.

“The ironic thing is last year was my first role not as a head coach.

“So it’s nothing new to me. With the infrastructure that’s in place, a lot of people would have wanted this job. But I worked very well with the coaching team last year, we had a plan that started to come to fruition and we wanted to build on that by keeping the continuity.

“Obviously to get the head coach role and the trust that has been put in us by Steve, Tony, Geech, means a lot.”

The fact it’s such an important role for the highest-ranked club in the county, is another proud moment for the Yorkshireman.

Born in Scarborough, he went through the local club’s juniors and colts set-up before finally breaking into the senior team.

“All I wanted to do was play for Scarborough first team, but I only managed a couple of games before I went up to the north east and played for Northumbria University,” he says.

“Then I got offered a contract by Alan Tait at Newcastle in my second year.”

Fearn had his longest stint at Newcastle, but also played for Bedford in the Championship, Saracens for a brief time on loan and then Sale. But by 27, after an injury-hit year at Sale, he quit the professional game to pursue the coaching bug full-time.

“I just love coaching, I always have, even when I was playing I’ve always been coaching. I actually studied development with coaching after school, but I was always coaching rugby,” he reflects. “My mum and dad are both teachers. I’ve been coaching since I was 15.”

Most of his experience has been in the BUCS (college) game which has produced a number of players now in the Premiership. But this is his first chance at a big job, and Lloyd’s words carry meaning and pressure.

“We aren’t going to be under-estimated this year, teams are going to be coming for us, they’ll want to come here and turn us over at this ground,” he says looking out over the lush grass of the Castle Park turf after a training session this week.

“Teams will be using the fact that we’ve been shouting from the rooftops as an incentive. We’re braced for that, it’s a competitive sport, it’s a collision-based sport and we’ve got to be ready for it.”

Last season was a tale of two halves; five wins in their first 12 games, followed by an unbeaten run from February to the end of May. Lessons were learned by the incumbent head coach.

“It was an accumulation of things, injuries, etc. And then people got used to playing with each other,” says Fearn of the flip that switched.

“We tweaked the way we played which took time to get that understanding. So we’re building on that.”

The new 14-team Champ Rugby is bolstered by former Premiership phoenix club Worcester who will be many people’s favourites, with Ealing and Coventry expected to be strong again.

A return to the six-team play-offs with a play-off final at the end of it and then a two-legged play-off against the team that finishes bottom of the Premiership, means it will be a long slog to reach the final destination.

“We’re gunning to win as many games as we can and then fly into the Champ play-offs,” is all Fearn will say about targets.

“If we’re being honest we were probably guilty of that last season, we got too giddy and we started talking about stuff that we weren’t ready to talk about.

“So we need to concentrate on what’s in front of us, it’s all these little battles, week after week, day after day.”

If ever he does get ahead of himself, he has a guiding hand in McGeechan to bring him back. The ultimate British and Irish Lions figurehead would have been forgiven for being in Australia at present, but instead he was at Castle Park this week, talking with players, overseeing training, two months from the start of the season.

“People probably see him on a Saturday in his suit in the sponsors lounge and think that’s it, but he’s out there every day in his tracksuit, talking to players, having a massive stamp on how we play,” says Fearn.

“We see the game very similarly myself and Geech. He’s brilliant. He’s at the other end of the line whenever I want him. I cannot speak highly enough about the bloke.

“He could be over in Australia getting treated like a king, but he’s here grafting which just sums him up.”

While Geech will watch games from the gantry at Castle Park, Fearn will be found on the touchline, barking out orders, just as he was when he was Ford’s right-hand man last season.

“I’m not going to change,” he smiles. “People probably look at me as the fat bloke from Yorkshire with the tattoos and the crew cut, but I enjoy the intricacies of the game. I’ve coached attack, I’ve coached defence, I’m not just a forwards coach.

“Am I going to be vocal? Yes, certainly. I’ll defend our lads, I’ll fall on my sword for our lads. But at the same time, the key to head coaching is getting a read of the room. I do think it’s something, with the nature of my route into sport and where I was brought up, that is a skill of mine.”

One that might finally unlock Doncaster Knights’ Premiership potential.