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The post-op update from Leicester on Ollie Chessum's England injury

(Photo by Alex Davidson /The RFU Collection via Getty Images )

Leicester boss Richard Wigglesworth has given his view on the stellar progress made this season at international level by England pick Ollie Chessum prior to his recent nasty injury. Having debuted last season off the bench under Eddie Jones, the versatile second row who can also play six became a first-choice lock under new head coach Steve Borthwick in this year’s Guinness Six Nations.

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Chessum played every minute of the initial four England matches in the 2023 championship but his hopes of full involvement were dashed by the training ground ankle dislocation he suffered in the training ground in Pennyhill on the Tuesday of the round five finale week versus Ireland.

That left the 22-year-old undergoing an operation last Monday that will deny him the chance of finishing out the current season with Leicester and leave him in a race to be fit in time for Rugby World Cup squad selection with England as the suggested rehabilitation period is between five to six months.

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Interim Leicester coach Wigglesworth, who will exit Tigers at the end of May to take up a role on Borthwick’s England staff, confirmed there was no change to the timetable surrounding the return of Chessum. “No, I think it has all gone well,” he said of the surgery.

As for the emergence of Chessum as a vital cog in Borthwick’s Test pack. Wigglesworth added: “He has been quality, hasn’t he? You know, he has played really well for a long time. He played both six and second row to a really high standard.

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“He is another player we are really lucky to have here at Leicester Tigers, he has a genuine desire to improve. A lot of people say they want to improve but actually doing something about it and working hard to make sure that you grow and grow as a player and put those performances on the international stage, he has done exceptionally well. Physically we can all see he is talented enough to play at the highest level, but he has got a mentality for it as well.”

Chessum was one of three Leicester youngsters who were regular starters in the recent Six Nations, joining Freddie Steward and Jack van Poortvliet as youthful selection favourites whose inclusion reflected positively on Tigers’ academy system. “There will be more than that as well in that group,” reckoned Wigglesworth.

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“It helps to have a group of them that have come through at a similar time driving standards and pushing each other on. You see your mate being successful, you see what it requires to be successful, then that is another motivating factor. The group of them together are stronger than being apart so hopefully from Leicester’s point of view we will be able to keep them together for a long time because they will push this club on.”

The defending champions head into their latest Gallagher Premiership fixture this Saturday at home to Bristol in third place, but there is no guarantee of making the playoffs as just nine points separate third and ninth. Wigglesworth’s league record in charge since Christmas week is won five, lost three. Has that been good enough?

“I probably didn’t have a figure in mind, and I don’t think anybody can recall it being this tight and this congested in the middle. The top two (Saracens and Sale) have been better than the rest of us. That is why we have ended up with this chock-a-block in the middle which is great for the league but not so much if you are one of the coaches right in the middle of it.

“It has been really competitive, how sport should be. Naturally, as a team you will always look back at the ones that you could have, should have – but all the coaches will be doing that.”

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fl 35 minutes ago
‘Props are awesome…so why don’t they win prizes?’

“The reason most props don’t last the whole game is that they expend proportionally more effort than players outside the front row. Should they be penalised for that?”

No, they don’t last the whole game because they are less fit than players outside the front row. I’d be interested to know if you’d apply this logic to other positions; do PSDT and Itoje regularly last longer than other players in their positions because they put in less effort?

None of this is about “penalising” props, its about being realistic about their impact on a game.


“While scrums are a small part of the game in terms of time spent in them, they have disproportionate impact. Dominant scrums win games; feeble ones lose them.”

Strength at the breakdown wins games. Good kicking wins games. Good handling wins games. Strong defence wins games. Good lineouts win games. Ultimately, I think that of all these things, the scrum is probably the least important, because it demonstrably doesn’t correlate very well with winning games. I don’t think Rugbypass will allow me to link articles, but if you google “HG Rugby Crowning the Best Scrum in Club Rugby” you’ll get a pretty convincing analysis that ranks Toulouse and Bordeaux outside of the 10 best club sides in the scrum - and ranks Leinster outside of the top 30.


“Or there’s Joe Marler’s epic performance in the Bristol v Quins 2021 Premiership Semi-Final, in which he finally left the pitch 15 minutes into extra time having signed off with a try saving tackle.”

Yeah - that’s a good example actually, but it kind of disproves your point. Marler played 95 minutes, which is unheard of for a prop.


“Maybe we need a dedicated Hall of Fame with entry only for props, and voted for only by props.”

Well we have the World Rugby XV of the year. Its only been going for a few years, but in time it’ll be a pretty good record of who are perceived as best props - although the lack of interest most people have in scrums means that perception of who the best props are doesn’t always match reality (e.g. Tadgh Furlong was great in 2018 - but was he really the best tighthead in the world in 2021, 2022, & 2023?).

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