How Lions boss made lasting first impression on Richard Wigglesworth

Richard Wigglesworth’s first meeting with Andy Farrell proved to be a pretty memorable one.

Back in 2010, Saracens were putting together what Wigglesworth describes as a “pretty persuasive” sales pitch to convince him to move south to London from Sale Sharks.

As part of those attempts to woo the scrum-half, Farrell – part of the Saracens coaching staff at the time – gave his fellow Lancastrian a guided tour of the area where he might expect to live.

“I remember getting out of the car,” Wigglesworth recalled, “and he just went, ‘Wiggy, have you got the balls? Have you got the balls to do it?’”

Needless to say, the half-back did have the necessary minerals, and that conversation was the start of a 10-year stay in north London that yielded five Premiership titles and three Champions Cups.

Farrell did not need to be so bombastic last weekend, when he called Wigglesworth to enquire about his availability for the upcoming British and Irish Lions tour of Australia.

“I had bit his hand off before he had to do any sort of convincing,” Wigglesworth said.

Despite notching up Premiership titles with Sale and Leicester as well as Saracens, while earning 33
England caps over a decade, Wigglesworth never quite forced his way into contention for a Lions tour as a player.

It is clear how much the opportunity to represent the touring squad as a coach means to him, though.

“There’s different points, and different tours happen, where you’re playing well, but I never expected a call,” he insisted.

“As every player of any standard, that’s the dream. It never materialised but that’s like that for most players. This is why this is the pinnacle and the elite of the elite, and why it’s so special and why we’ve now got a really big job of picking the best squad we can.

“We owe all the lads all our effort now to get the balance right and to pick them and to help them as much as we can.”

Wigglesworth has since been added to the coaching group WhatsApp and was part of a long day of selection discussions in London on Tuesday before facing the media the following day.

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But it did not take those intense 48 hours to hammer home the magnitude of being part of a Lions tour. That realisation arrived a few days earlier, when he watched his son Freddie play for his rugby club in Manchester.

“They were all trying to chew my ear off, ‘Who do you like this’, ‘Who’s going to be this?’ And I’m obviously playing with the straightest of straight bats because I knew what they didn’t,” he added.

“They were just chewing the breeze, which is why this Lions thing is so good because it’s so big and engages so many people.

“And that’s what they were doing. They were just wanting to chat rugby in a positive way, but I obviously couldn’t say anything.”

Wigglesworth admitted he will need to go back and watch the Six Nations with a different set of eyes as a Lions coach and he emphasised his role within the panel is not to be a cheerleader for England players.

He said: “[I’m a] Lions coach, so 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.”