Archie McParland's no fan of Austin Healey, nor TikTok, but loves Dupont

Merseyside can claim one Rugby World Cup-winning scrum-half as one of its own, and another who was controversially left out of the 2003 squad in Matt Dawson and Austin Healey, who were born four miles apart in Birkenhead and Wallasey.

Neither of those two minced their words on the field, or off it now in their roles as Radio and TV pundits, and the latest talented scrum-half to come from the region, Northampton’s Birkenhead-born Archie McParland, clearly knows how to hold a conversation, too, if a recent media call is anything to go by.

However, other than their playing position and where they are from, there’s no connection, and definitely no sage advice from Healey, as far as the Saints youngster is concerned.

“Apart from Austin’s Healey’s advice that you hear on TNT Sports, which is probably not very good, I haven’t heard too much to be fair,” he said, with a slight hint of a smile.

So where did he draw his inspiration from?

“I only moved to scrum-half when I was 16, so basically throughout Covid, I started transitioning (to scrum-half),” the 20-year-old explained.

“When I was younger, I was a fly-half/15. There weren’t that many positions as such at that age, but Dan Carter was a massive inspiration for me. I read his autobiography and watched all his highlights on repeat, and also Mike Brown, which is a bit of a rogue shout.

“They were players I used to look up to and base my game off. But then, moving to nine, obviously, I used to watch a lot of Dupont. When I was 16, that’s when he first came onto the scene, and when he was tearing it up. It’s quite hard to base your game off him because he is so good.”

Standing 1.83m tall and weighing 86kgs, McParland is almost identical in size to Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet, and is similarly fleet-footed.

That footwork won’t be lending tiself to a TikTok dance reel anytime soon, though, unlike Saints team-mates Tommy Freeman, Henry Pollock and Fin Smith, who, along with Leicester’s Freddie Steward, went viral with an Irish-style jig on the social media platform.

“When I got injured a few months back with my shoulder, I started doing a bit of TikTok to get the time to pass a bit quicker. It’s alright, I don’t really like the TikTok too much, but I have tried to build my profile on Instagram. You don’t get pushed too much but it is recommended to do so,” said the former Stowe School pupil.

“I think sport is an entertainment, people come here (Franklin’s Gardens) to be entertained, and it comes through social media as well, and that has sky-rocketed in the past 10 years; I think it is a massive part of the game now.”

Having been in the shadow of England’s first-choice nine, Alex Mitchell, McParland is starting to press forward his own international claims.

He played for England A in 2025 and is nailed on to do so again if he can continue to reproduce the form he showed in Saints’ eye-catching 41-21 win over defending champions Bath at The Rec over the festive period.

Had Tommy Freeman not scored a hat-trick, McParland was a shoe-in for Player of the Match. Not that there would have been any champagne corks popping post-match. According to his team-mate, Craig Wright, McParland prefers a quiet night to a raucous one, and the scrum-half lived up to his reputation by leaving for home fairly soon after the five points had been collected, to be with family.

His nickname ‘Giggles’ was perhaps given to him ironically, but he was ‘all-in’ when it came to expressing himself on the park that night.

“It was an amazing game to be a part of,” said McParland, who is approaching the second anniversary of his first Premiership start. “My mindset going into that game was to fully back myself and really show what I can do, whereas in the past, I’d sort of held back. Going into that mindset is much better for me.

“I feel like you get a lot of confidence from training well, playing well and getting picked, and I have been given lots of feedback about stuff I can get better at, and my family’s also helped me massively in giving me confidence to go and perform on the weekend.”

McParland loves the all-action nature of modern scrum-half play, even the physical side of things.

“I think it is changing, a lot,” he said when asked about the demands of the position.

“I remember when I was growing up, the nine would always be just behind the defensive line, wandering behind. But I am not sure we can afford to do that now, just with the quality of players and the attack they’ve got, you can’t afford to lose one behind. So we are frontline and back-field sometimes and we’re expected to make takcles constantly. The position has definitely got more physical, as have all positions.”

“It used to be a very static positon, just passing the ball to the fly-half, and the fly-half makes all the decisions,” he continued, switching from defence to attack.

“If you look at the way the French teams play, especially France, and us at the moment, you are encouraged to get the ball up and threaten the defence and make decisions and have players running off you.”