Richard Wigglesworth was in the garden with his five-year-old daughter, two days after England’s thumping win over Wales, when the phone rang. It was Andy Farrell and as much as Margot was not happy that her father was on the phone, it was a call he had to take. England’s storming finish to the Six Nations may not be the only reason Wigglesworth has been seconded to the British & Irish Lions but it can only have helped, and so the 41-year-old completes Farrell’s lineup, the first England coach to do so since Steve Borthwick in 2017.
It is easy to forget that more than two years ago, Wigglesworth was still playing for Leicester Tigers. He was a player-coach when Borthwick got the call from England in December 2022 and as a result, Wigglesworth immediately hung up his boots and took interim charge at Welford Road.
By the end of the season, after losing a Premiership semi-final to Sale, he had joined up with Borthwick at England, first as attack coach before graduating to senior coach in October last year. When explaining why he selected Wigglesworth, Farrell spoke effusively of how the former scrum-half had thrown himself into coaching, off the deep end, and theirs is a relationship that goes back a while. “I love his story, I know him, I know what makes him tick,” said Farrell. “I love the determination, the courage, the ambition that he had from being a player-coach, to having the balls to take on a head coach job when he had no clue what that entailed.”
Farrell was just cutting his coaching teeth with Saracens when Wigglesworth was persuaded to join the north London club as a player and the pair were reunited when Farrell was appointed as Stuart Lancaster’s defence coach with England. Indeed, Farrell was a significant influence in convincing Wigglesworth to join Saracens.
“He was part of the coaching staff that signed me in 2010,” recalls Wigglesworth. “I’d come down from Sale and didn’t expect to sign, but he along with the others were really persuasive. He’d shown me round where you might live. I remember getting out of 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.”
When the call came last Monday, there was not nearly as much persuading to do. “It was last Monday and I was back on duty after the Six Nations and Margot was wanting to play outside, so I was picking up the ball around with her and saw Faz’s name pop up and thought, ‘let’s answer this’. Yeah … an incredible moment.”
Wigglesworth did not tour with the Lions as a player – of Farrell’s five-strong coaching staff only Simon Easterby did – but in Borthwick he has the perfect sounding board. The England head coach was part of Warren Gatland’s staff for the series draw with New Zealand in 2017 and Wigglesworth will go to Australia with his blessing. “It was brilliant for me and accelerated my coaching, so I’d love as many other people from the England group to be in there as possible, and I’ll be fully supportive of them all,” said Borthwick.
Wigglesworth added: “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 it looks like, but 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.”
Now that Farrell has named his assistants he can look forward to his squad announcement on 8 May with his coaches recuperating after the Six Nations before casting an eye over domestic matches in the coming weeks. Wigglesworth is adamant he does not see it as his job to bang the drum for England players’ selection but certainly Farrell will be aware of what his new assistant was able to achieve, rounding off the recent campaign with a 10-try win in Cardiff.
“I’m a Lions coach, 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,” says Wigglesworth. “It’ll be the same for any player. I will be as honest as I can because it is going to require us all to put everything aside and think of nothing but the Lions to have a chance of success.”
