England assistant coach Richard Wigglesworth is ready for his side to return to winning form at Twickenham, as they take on Wales this Saturday in the second round of the 2024 Six Nations. The last time England ran out at home was their Rugby World Cup warm-up defeat to Fiji, which marked the team’s first ever loss to a tier two rugby nation.
Wigglesworth is ready for England and Wales to write the next chapter in their age old rivalry, and recognised the need for an England win. With Steve Borthwick’s side sent victorious into the second round of the competition, The former Leicester and Saracens scrum half is eager for his team to lift the home support, with a winning return to their home ground.
“Twickenham is a great place to play as England players. That context of that (Fiji) game is very different to this one. Twickenham is going to be a great place to play for our players, and we all know that in sport playing well and winning matches gets everyone behind that cause, so does playing with an incredible amount of passion, showing exactly what it means to play for England.
“With this group you saw start away in Rome where fans and people watching will see that from this group. Is it always going to be perfect? Are we anywhere near where we want to end up? No. But there is a team here you can get behind, because of how they go about their business on and off the field.”
After a successful first outing as England captain, Jamie George will look to build on the Italy victory and make it two wins for two at the helm. Wigglesworth believes that the new skipper has all the attributes to excel in the job, and his leadership will be valued for this weekend’s battle with Wales. Speaking on George’s leadership attributes, Wigglesworth said;
“With Jamie we wanted him to do it his way, which is why he was picked as England captain as we thought he’d do a great job. Part of what makes him special is that’s how he would talk, and how he believes. He needs to be a in a great space as a leader where he can project that and push that on everyone in the really impressive way he has.”
“The build-up is obviously exciting because it’s a massive game with a historic rivalry attached to it. We’ve got quite a few of the group who have played in a lot of these games, home and away. We’ve got some new guys who are going to really enjoy this experience. We want to make the players’ experience of playing at home a really good one, not just on the day but in the week and specific to them. That’s tactical, obviously, but also it’s a big, historic rivalry to big the game up.”
The most-capped Premiership player then gave his two cents on the incredible Wales v Scotland match from the weekend. After initially dropping to 27-0 down, Wales battled back to just one point behind, yet narrowly fell at the final hurdle. The 27-26 Scotland win presented a litany of questions for England to assess, and Wigglesworth recognised an assortment of threats that Wales have at their disposal.
“I saw the (Wales v Scotland) result before we watched it, because we were at a function, and my first thought was ‘this isn’t a 27-0 game’. It wasn’t like they’d been awful and Scotland were amazing. It was that Scotland took their chances and Wales wouldn’t have been happy with a couple of things that happened. And then everything flipped.
“The discipline went the other way and they started getting all the momentum and all the field position. They did a good job of converting points. But they will come with the intention of playing more like they did in the second half than the first.
“They have got the talent. They’ve got a good amount of threats in them, a good amount of speed and ball play. We would fully expect that to come, but what we also saw was that they kicked the ball very early in phase count inside their own half. I think the break-aways are opportunistic, which is great from their point of view.”
Wigglesworth focussed his scope, to one of the top players in Gatland’s team, as Tommy Reffell impressed all onlookers in the defeat to Scotland. Wigglesworth is more than familiar with Reffell’s skillset, given their shared time at Leicester Tigers, as both teammates and throughout Wigglesworth’s time on the coaching staff.
“Tommy Reffell, I’ve worked with him a long time, and he’s a brilliant boy, let’s put that on record. But he’s in a red shirt this week and we know that his strength will be in and around that breakdown, with all the other stuff he adds as well.
“Do we need to be aware he’s going to be there, yes. Is it more about us our speed and what we do when we get there, absolutely. We made a good start on that. In terms of our contact skills and where we want to get to to be an elite level attacking team, we want to push that on again”
Five England players made their test match debuts against Italy last weekend, and one of which is back in the spotlight ahead of the second round match against Wales. It was been extensively reported how Immanuel Feyi-Waboso was born and grew up in Cardiff, yet the 21-year-old was capped by Steve Borthwick last Saturday in Rome.
Feyi-Waboso could well be on his way to taking on Wales this weekend, and Wigglesworth backs the Exeter Chiefs wing to take the challenge in his stride. The assistant coach would like to see Feyi-Waboso block out the noise and rise to the occasion, and discussed his best on-field attributes that earned him his test match debut.
“I do. You never know what’s going on inside someone’s head but the air he gives off is exactly that. This is another that week that he gets to train and potentially be involved with England. It’s one of those things that when it gets brought up, am I going to try and look for something whereas you wouldn’t have looked for it the week before. And even in that we’re not seeing anything. He was good today, he’s been good all week so he’s taken it in his stride really well.
“You saw that carry when he came on. The power he has. He has power in the carry. He’s got pace, he defends and gets high on edges and hits things but he’s obviously got so much room to grow and get better with being a young winger in the game. Hopefully part of being a young winger around Test players and guys in the back three who have got caps will accelerate his learning.”
Another England break-out player who made their debut against Italy, Fraser Dingwall obtained his first test match cap as he started in the midfield against Italy. The Northampton Saints man took the 12 jersey in an effort to fill the void left by ball-carrying centres Manu Tuilagi and Ollie Lawrence. Wigglesworth discussed the midfielder’s performance, yet admitted that Dingwall differs in approach than that of the Sale or Bath bruisers.
“That would all go ‘into the melting pot in terms of selection in terms of carry and strengths and so on but that also comes on in defensive side of the game, kicking side of the game and what you have got. Ultimately it is what you have got fit and available and trying to play to their strengths so Fraser Dingwall getting over the advantage line might look different to a Manu Tuilagi but we have seen him time and again get over the advantage line for Northampton because he has got a way of doing it.
“I need to be able to bring that to his game in a white shirt, that he can get us over the gainline, he can glue a backline together like he does for Northampton in a white shirt for England so that would be how to bring out the best of them but there would be some tweaks around how we get people carrying and how often.
“I think he (Fraser Dingwall) is one of those guys that you can not talk about much or not focus attention on, because he is a glue player. He is a guy who is unassuming, doesn’t seek headlines, I bet you he is one of those players, if you go and ask everyone who plays with him, he makes them better. I bet he is one of those guys who knows everything all the time, what his role is, what the next guy’s role is and what works around.
“How much he is talking, organising forwards on the run. I won’t talk ceilings on anyone because we don’t know what they can do, but what I would say is I have been really impressed with the boy and not only is he a great team man to have around, he is a great team man to have out on the field because he makes people better. He puts people in holes, organises, runs. The amount of defensive running he did to put the team in positions to shut things down, I was really happy with him.”
Wigglesworth compared Dingwall’s on-field influence to his former Saracens teammates, with the Northampton man’s future looking strong in the England midfield for the foreseeable future.
“In a different way Brad Barritt, a glue player, in terms of making people around him better and Alex Goode, they would be two guys that jump out that make people better, in a different sort of way to Fraser.”