FORMER Worcester Warriors director of rugby Dean Ryan has been trending on Twitter.

Ryan quit Sixways unexpectedly at the end of June and is now joining England Rugby Football Union and as head of international player development.

At the time of his departure from Worcester, Warriors chief executive Jim O’Toole said Ryan no longer wanted to be a full-time director of rugby at the club.

Ryan was, at the time, being linked with a coaching role at Bath but O’Toole stated the former England number eight would not be joining another Aviva Premiership club.

Now Ryan will be reporting to his old friend Nigel Melville at the RFU.

He will be responsible for leading and managing the international performance pathway to provide a pipeline of players capable of securing sustainable success for England.

Here are some comments from Warriors supporters on today's news.

Guerrier

At least we know why Dean left. His negotiations with the RFU must have started well before he left us. Just frustrating he didn’t come out and say it or wait until the RFU announced it before leaving. Maybe he was worried if he said he had a role at the RFU lined up then the club would potentially have tried to seek compensation from RFU?

I assume that Nigel probably discussed this role with Dean when Nigel Melville was appointed to RFU in April, given there know each other very well from Gloucester.

Dean would have seen this as a great career move and it potentially sets him up to take over from Eddie Jones in 2019? Dean had a long term contract at Worcester and therefore needed to be released first to take up the role, probably no coincidence that this announcement is exactly 1 month after he left Worcester, maybe he had a one month gag clause?

AJ Bailey

Fair play. He's helping the national team so I have no problem with that at all. Congratulations.

Ian B ‏@ian_boxall

A role which will take many years to gauge whether he's been successful. Best of luck to him

MSR-Worcester

I imagine this role allows DR to take a bit of a step-back from day to day rugby. He likes all the big picture stuff after all. Can imagine it's quite stressful being a DOR of an AP club, so this removes a bit of that. Good luck to him. Thanks for the last few years, hopefully we're back on track.

Balatro

How good it must feel to be in a position where his work can't be frustrated by the bean counters.