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England confirm coaching ticket to include 4 of Borthwick's Tigers staff

By PA
(Photo by Bob Bradford - CameraSport via Getty Images)

Steve Borthwick has named Tom Harrison as England’s new scrum coach as he finalised his staff for the World Cup.

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Harrison will follow Richard Wigglesworth and Aled Walters in joining the England set-up from Leicester, and is due to start work on June 1.

Wigglesworth will lead the attack coaching and kicking strategy with Walters head of strength and conditioning.

Tony Roques, the England men’s sevens head coach, will work as contact and skills coach, and Kevin Sinfield will continue as defence coach.

Borthwick said: “I am very pleased to confirm the England coaching team for the Rugby World Cup.

“Tom is an excellent coach and will have a real impact in area that will be fundamental to us as a team. Leicester’s scrum is renowned across Europe and Tom has played a leading role in that success. I have full confidence in him and I am very happy that he will be joining England.

“Tony has an extensive background in Sevens and is an experienced, specialist contact and skills coach. Individual skill emphasis will be an important part of our work. Having worked alongside him in the 2019 campaign, I know what a good coach he is and he will really contribute to the team.

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“Richard has a proven track record as a player and a player coach, and you can see what an excellent job he has done as head coach of Leicester Tigers in the past few months.

“He has played at Rugby World Cups and has coaching experience in 2019, and understands the unique demands of the tournament and the support that players need. He knows a lot of the players very well and will bring different insights to the coaching team.”

Speaking about Harrison, Leicester Tigers Chief Executive Officer Andrea Pinchen said: “Since coming into Leicester Tigers, Tom has been an exceptional contributor to the club on and off the field.”

“While obviously disappointed to be losing him at the end of the season, we wish him all the very best for this next chapter in his career.

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“Tom is a great reflection of our club’s ability to produce coaches as well as players through the pathway programme at Leicester Tigers and while it has been another challenge for us this year, with coaches being poached by the national side, we continue to see it as a badge of honour for the level at which we are viewed within the game.

“While we are confirming this news now, the campaign is not complete this season and Tom is committed to finishing his time at the club in the hard working way that he has demonstrated throughout the six years at Leicester Tigers.

“This is not a surprise to us and the work has been done in the background to ensure we have a top quality replacement for Tom and coaching team led by Dan McKellar next season, which we will announce in the summer.”

Speaking about the decision, Harrison said: “This was a really tough decision for me but, at this time in my career, I feel it’s the right one and am excited about the opportunity.”

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Leicester Tigers and the chance to work with all the players I have had the privilege to coach during the past six years.

“To have played a part in the careers of so many young men during the first few years and then to have been the senior scrum coach at the club in the past three seasons has been a fulfilling, great experience.

“The experience of working as part of the coaching teams I have been a part of at all levels at Leicester Tigers has been wonderful and I am eternally grateful to each and every coach for what I have learned from them and the memories I will take with me.

“I am excited for what is to come with England but, for now, there is still a lot of work to be done this season and I will be giving my all until the end of our campaign together at Leicester Tigers.”

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Carmen Beechum 1 hour ago
Mick Cleary: 'England are back among the heavyweights.'

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JW 1 hour ago
Five reasons why Super Rugby Pacific is enjoying it's best season in forever

The Mickey Mouse playoff system that made the entire regular season redundant

The playoff system has never been redundant Ben, it was merely important to fewer teams, just those vying for top seed. After that it was simply about qualifying.


The format is arguably worse now. I can see the Canes slumping to a point were the return of key components, like their starting midfield, is now going to happen too late for them due to the reduced playoff spots. So we don’t get the perfect jeopardy like what we got with the Crusaders last year, were deservedly (despite showing they easily had a top 4 team when fit) they missed out because they were even more pathetic than that early team deserved. A couple more bonus points with some better leadership, on and off field, would have given the Crusaders a deserving. As reported last year have we not seen a more perfect finals run in.


Objectively easier finals qualification is better suited to shorter competitions, and we know SR is the “sprint” version amongst it’s rugby equivalents. The Top 14 is probably the worst competition in this respect, with it’s length with a double round robin should have a football styled champion. The Premiership, with it’s smaller base but also double round robin, was pretty much perfectly suited to it’s smaller 4 team playoff. Super Rugby, with it’s much shorter season (smaller amount of games, and most importantly over a much shorter period, would be able suited to a 6 team play off series if it had a comparative round robin. It doesn’t. Playing a bunch of random extra games, within your own division, requires you to expand the qualification reach. Super Rugby was another perfectly balanced competition.


If you want to look subjectively, sure, there are a lot of cool facets of tighter qualification, they just aren’t sensible applicable to SR so you have to be a realist.


I’m pretty sure you yourself have authored articles showing you need to be in the top four come finals time to win Super Rugby.

Competition parity this year just seems to be part luck, but we’ll take it.

The closer parity is simply more about circumstance, I agree. The Lions tour has just as much to do with the consistency and early standards in Australian players performances, and random factors balancing the NZ sides. The predictable improvement of the “Pacific Powers” another key factor, but with the case of extra support like NZR help raise their profile, as in the “Ardie” factor, possibly able to happen a year sooner than it has.


Still, as I have highlighted on previous articles, I wouldn’t be surprised if these results were nearly as predictable as they were last year, and that it was just the fixture ‘creation’ by new management that has artificially created a bit more hype and unrealistic perception on the competitions ‘parity’, in these early stages.

Super Rugby Pacific has done the right thing and got rid of most TMO interventions that have plagued the game over the last few years and impacted one World Cup final.

I wouldn’t have minded if they just put their own spin on WR’s structure. While you don’t go on to describe what the two situations are that remain, one that I think could still have been of value keeping is for the ability for the TMO to rule live.


The fact that several of the WC’s TMO officials were overly zealous in their ability to over rule the onfield decision does not mean there wouldn’t have been value in a good southern hemisphere run contingent from simply adding value and support to the game ref. Take the case last weekend as the perfect example. While I don’t believe it would have been of any real benefit for the Highlanders to have had advantage at the death (the same sequence would have still played out), looking in isolation one can clearly tell that was a live situation where the ref said he was obstructed from making a call, and if the current rules would have allowed, the TMO, like us on TV, could easily have told him to play advantage for the infringement. In another situation that type of officiating could have made all the difference to the quality and accuracy of the outcome. Views of the comp would be a lot different if it was clearly as case that the Highlanders were robbed of a deserved victory.


All told, the game is obviously much better off for what changes have been made with officiating, though this is not really isolated to SR. SR is just the only comp to have start with these.

If you want back in, put your hands up for some real competition, don’t ask for handouts. No conference systems.

We are currently in a conference system Ben, I’m afraid you’re beating the wrong drum there and you own subjective (and flawed) opinions are coming through quite clearly. As spitballed on the article a few days ago, it’s hard to see a true league table where it is either a full round robin or double round robin happen, there is still going to be some amount of divisional derby matchs going on to fill out the season.


Conferences are also the only way forward, so get on board. I would love for SARU to be able to add a couple of regional sides in Super Rugby, using the countries burgeoning playerbase. It might be far easier, and more advantageous, for SA to add to SR than say try to enlarge the URC, or go it on their own with a professional scene. They could leave their clubs to themselves and take control of running a highveld team out of Cheetahs country, and a lowveld team wherever they would like a new attempt at a ‘Kings’ team. I can’t see the clubs ever rejoining SR.


Not surprised the article is well off the mark Ben.


One thing they could do to further improve the ‘jeopardy’ though is to have a separate world club table where each seasons finalists are awarding ranking points going towards selecting who takes part in the biennial (right?) world champs the Champions Cup is hosting in the future. I’d normally expect the government to simply send whoever the most recent finalists are but I reckon creating a way to have those instead be judged by contribution since the last edition (however frequent this idea might turn out) could be a winner this new management will work out and capitalize on. It would also help add to that jeopardy if say ranking points were only allocated to the top 6 of an 8 team finals format.

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