Long and distinguished his playing career may have been, Richard Wigglesworth freely admits that he never expected the British and Irish Lions call to come during his 20 years at the elite level. Unable to fully break up the Ben Youngs and Danny Care English scrum-half duopoly, and with competition rich at the position in the other constituent unions, Wigglesworth was never quite perfectly poised to pounce for a place on the five tours encompassed within his career despite his 33 international caps and tally of seven Premiership titles.
So it was with immense pride that the 41-year-old answered the summons from Andy Farrell last week asking him to join his former Saracens and England coach on the trip to Australia. Back on dad duties after weeks away from home working during the Six Nations, Wigglesworth was larking about in his back garden with his five-year-old daughter when the phone rang – and having successfully fended off her attention for long enough to take the call, there was no hesitation in accepting Farrell’s offer.
“Different tours happen when you’re playing well but I never expected a call,” Wigglesworth reflected of his Lions hopes as a player. “As with every player, that’s the dream. It never materialised but it’s like that for most players. That’s why this is the pinnacle and the elite of the elite.
“I bit [Farrell’s] hand off before he needed to do any convincing. I love a challenge and they don’t get any better than this one. I can’t wait to get stuck in.”
It is little more than two years since Wigglesworth finally called time on his illustrious club career, a move into a full-time coaching role at Leicester Tigers necessitated by Steve Borthwick’s appointment as England head coach in December of 2022. After an impressive interim stint at Welford Road, Wigglesworth followed his boss into the national team to oversee the attack, before earning a promotion to be Borthwick’s first lieutenant ahead of the autumn.
After a mixed start to the Six Nations, few would have expected Wigglesworth’s name to feature on the list of assistants confirmed on Wednesday, but England’s strong finish and 10-try thrashing of Wales could hardly have presented a more compelling case for their attacking schemer’s inclusion. There are parallels between his rise and that of his boss – Borthwick went on the 2017 Lions tour to New Zealand at a similar stage in his coaching career, with the pair each taking on roles while still playing, with Japan and Canada respectively.
While there are a few lingering loose ends to tie up from the recently finished campaign, there is no suggestion that Wigglesworth will have to review England games while away with the Lions as Borthwick was forced to by Eddie Jones eight years ago. “He’s well placed to make sure that I am in the best spot going forward,” Wigglesworth explained. “Steve was awesome. He knew before me but was obviously waiting for me to get the call and offer from Andy.
“He was delighted for me. He’s been a big part of my coaching journey so I thanked him for that. I’ll be picking his brains on what the Lions looks like. He did say that one of his rugby highlights was coaching the Lions as an assistant, so I’m looking forward to catching up with him about that.”
One of the shrewdest half-back tacticians as a player, Wigglesworth has shown an adaptability even in a relatively short coaching career so far. After installing a limited but successful kick-pressure gameplan to take England to the semi-finals of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, the 41-year-old has since been tasked with expanding the side’s attacking game. There have been ups and downs in the year or so since but the Wales thrashing showed the sort of side Borthwick and Wigglesworth are hoping to build.
“It was one of those games where we got every bounce of the ball. We’ve had times in the last 12 months where you are cursing that bounce. But they were off and we were on, and getting the odd bounce along the way, that’s what it looks like. But in terms of how we want to play the game, that would be the blueprint.
“We were poor against Scotland with the ball. As with all these things, you adapt and you use it, or you let it weigh you down. Credit to Steve and the players, we adapted and put our best stuff out in the last couple of weeks, which is great.”
Wigglesworth is excited to work with Ireland counterpart Andrew Goodman and Farrell himself to forge an attacking strategy for the tour. “Nothing’s set in stone yet but Andy wants us across all areas together: the opposite of what working in silos looks like. He wants us as cohesive as possible. My responsibility is to every player from the British Isles and Ireland, to work as hard as I can to get up to speed with their strengths and what they could bring.”
There is a sense of a journey coming full circle as Wigglesworth unites with Farrell, a key figure and factor in bringing the scrum-half to Saracens a decade and a half ago. “He was part of the coaching staff that signed me in 2010. I’d come down from Sale and didn’t expect to sign, but him along with the others were really persuasive.
“He’d shown me round where I might live. I remember getting out the car and the last thing he said was, ‘Wiggy, have you got the balls to do it?’ I was like, ‘yeah, I have’. That was my first memory of big Faz.”
