FORMER Keighley player Andy Rock, who was Yorkshire Carnegie's Academy manager until taking an identical role with Bath in August, is being replaced at Headingley by another man who has connections with the town.

Keighley-born Ben Lazenby will look after Carnegie's programmes and pathways, while joint manager Jon Pendlebury will concentrate on the players in an expanded Academy set-up at Headingley.

Lazenby, who joined Yorkshire Carnegie last year, having established a strong reputation for player development during his seven years at Warrington Wolves, said: "I am delighted to have this opportunity to work with Jon to further progress our academy in the support of talented junior players in Yorkshire.

"As an academy, we have a rich player pool of potential elite players and we want to ensure that all players who possess the potential to be elite have opportunities through the pathway, supported by experts in their field, to improve and become future players for the club and country, as well as help us achieve our aim of being a premiership club in Yorkshire, populated by Yorkshire players.

"We are also excited about extending the support from the pathways to ensure a robust county and grass-roots game across all of Yorkshire.

"This way we can make sure that our county continues to be a stronghold of the game in England."

The programme at Yorkshire Carnegie has been recognised as one of the outstanding academies in the country, having produced England internationals like Danny Care, Luther Burrell and Paul Hill, among others, along with a host of England age-group players over the last two decades.

By splitting the leadership role between Pendlebury and Lazenby, the club hope to be able to fully integrate the player development pathways in partnership with the RFU and PRL (Premiership Rugby Limited) across the county.

Former Carnegie player Pendlebury has been part of the Academy coaching staff since 2012, originally joining the club as a player in 2008, having also played in the Premiership with Gloucester and Rotherham.

He said: "This is an exciting opportunity for us as an Academy, a club and for myself as we look to take forward the good work that has been done over this last five years.

"In my time working in developmental rugby, through the goals set by the RFU and our vision as a Yorkshire academy, we have supported a large number of players from our region.

"I have had the opportunity to work with some great people and coaches and we now have an excellent group who have supported myself and Ben and enabled us to take this joint management role together."