Giselle Mather has left her role as director of rugby at Ealing Trailfinders Women in a shock development weeks before the start of the Premiership Women’s Rugby season.

Widely regarded as one of the most successful and experienced coaches in the women’s game, Mather guided Trailfinders to a sixth place finish in their inaugural season in the women’s top flight.

It was considered a major coup when she was recruited by the club in July 2022 to design and implement its first women’s programme and was named runner-up in the PWR end-of-season coaching awards 2023-24.

Her unexpected exit is understood to be caused by a disagreement with Ben Ward, Ealing’s managing director, who had allegedly questioned Mather’s “game strategy”. A source close to the club claimed there was a power struggle between the pair.

Telegraph Sport understands Trailfinders’ women’s squad were told last Friday about Mather’s unexpected departure and the news is said to have blindsided many players.

In a development that will raise questions over the treatment and level of respect given to women’s coaches at PWR clubs, Mather is the third female head coach to have left the women’s top flight this summer after Amy Turner and Vicky Macqueen vacated their roles at Harlequins and Leicester Tigers, respectively.

Turner has moved sideways into a men’s pathway role, while Macqueen mysteriously left Tigers in July, leaving Exeter Chiefs’ Susie Appleby and Rachel Taylor at Sale Sharks the only female head coaches in the nine-team league.

Barney Maddison, who was formerly Trailfinders women’s forwards coach, is understood to be the prime candidate to succeed Mather as director of rugby for the 2024-25 season.

A World Cup winner with England in 1994, Mather became the first woman to earn her level-four coaching badge and won back-to-back titles with Wasps in the early noughties. She has a track record of developing young talent, having kickstarted the careers of Red Roses internationals Maud Muir, Abby Dow and rising star Ellie Kildunne at Wasps.

She became the first woman to land a full-time coaching role at a men’s Premiership club when she headed up London Irish’s Advanced Apprenticeship and Sporting Excellence programme, in which she mentored the likes of Alex Corbisiero, Anthony Watson and Jonathan Joseph. She also led Teddington’s men’s side on a record 62-game unbeaten run that included three promotions and two Twickenham Cup Final victories.

Despite her successes in the game, Mather has been open about her struggles as a female coach in rugby, having not even been granted an interview when she applied to become England women’s head coach in 2015.

“Do people still perceive that because we’re women, we don’t get it? In football, it’s the offside bloody rule which is always levelled at women,” Mather told Telegraph Sport in 2021.

“We still go back to the comparison of women and men in the actual playing of the game. People can’t move away from that, they can’t divorce the physiological playing of a sport from coaching the sport.”

Ealing Trailfinders has been approached for comment.