Sarah McKenna admitted it was probably a good thing that she was otherwise occupied when OA Saints lifted the Women’s Championship South title.

The Harpenden and Saracens star is head coach of the Woollams-based side who claimed the title, the highest level in England outside of the Tyrrells Premier 15s, with a dramatic final day victory over Trojans lifting them above rivals Blackheath and Thurrock.

But she was almost 400 miles away, preparing for England's Women's Six Nations clash with Scotland in Glasgow, and even though that match fell victim to Storm Ciara, she was forced into frantic phone calls and updates on Twitter to find out what was going on.

'It did cross my mind that I could have been there,' she smiled. 'But to be fair I've missed a lot of training with preparing for the Six Nations so a lot of that last effort in the season wasn't to do with me.

'The girls saw the title was available and they stuck together.

'But with three teams in contention on that final day I was actually glad I was away from it.

'There was no footage so I just had to rely on Twitter updates and that was pretty stressful.

'I don't know what I'd have been like had I been there. It is the peak of my coaching career so I don't know how I would have reacted.

'We were confident we could get a few scores, especially the way we were playing.

'I called the boys at half-time to see if we would turn it on and they were confident that we would so it was all good.'

It was an incredible achievement for the Saints, coming in their first season back in the level after winning promotion.

And it is just part of a fantastic year which has also seen the club field a second team for the first time in a number of years.

That is something McKenna is delighted with.

She said: 'It's been a long time coming and the second team and their culture is always something we have been proud of.

'Sometimes that culture is even stronger in a second team, they are really playing for each other week in, week out.

'We're trying to recreate that and we've got a plethora of players who want to play for the Saints.'