STEVE THE MERCILESS
Wigglesworth knows boss is not afraid to wield axe
RUTHLESS Steve Borthwick is not afraid to rip up the England team, his misfiring outfit have been warned.
Borthwick’s assistant coach, Richard Wigglesworth, saw the head coach’s hard edge at club level when he was dropped and then reinstated in the space of seven days.
In Leicester’s title-winning season of 2022, scrum-half Wigglesworth was ousted from the matchday 23 entirely for the Premiership semi-final against Northampton. A week later he was back in favour for the Twickenham showpiece, when Tigers beat Saracens 15-12, starting ahead of Ben Youngs with Jack van Poortvliet the scapegoat.
The squad meet this morning in York to debrief Saturday’s 30-21 Calcutta Cup defeat by Scotland with Wigglesworth insisting Borthwick is not afraid to wield the axe. Several big guns, including George Ford, Danny Care and Henry Slade, will be wary of getting a tap on the shoulder from the boss ahead of the clash with Ireland on Saturday week. Wigglesworth, inset below with Borthwick, said: “Steve has always picked tactically. He’s probably not had as much credit as he deserves for being brave with some selections.
“If you go through the history of his coaching from Leicester to now, you’d pick up some pretty bold selections. I was one of them once, so I know he’s capable of making difficult choices, not just the easy choice.
“He’ll make them in a very considered way. You can’t get every selection call right. You’d love to as a coach. But with Steve, you know that it’s considered and it’s planned. I probably remember the rationale behind not picking me for the week before more than the rationale for picking me for the final. I made it clear the week before that I didn’t agree. Because I’d been forthright with that, I thought I’d best deliver now.
“If you’re not playing, you’ll never fully agree with it – and nor should you. But if you have some clarity over why, which I feel we can give, then you can accept it and move to try to get better.”
Wigglesworth’s current remit is attack but England have been toothless on the front foot, scoring just six tries in their first three Six Nations games, compared to 11 at the same stage last year. But Wigglesworth, who was not in the job in that campaign, has pleaded for patience.
He added: “We’ve talked about how we want to evolve, and that we don’t want a revolution every time we turn up at a camp. One of the major facets to a really good attack is cohesion, so that takes time. In attack you’ve got to be in sync with each other, so the more time we have together the more we’ll develop it.” ❒ FRANCE centre Jonathan Danty will miss games against Wales and England after being given a five-week ban for his red card in Sunday’s 13-13 draw with Italy.