Tigers boss wary of old pal Stuart Lancaster's Leinster 'juggernaut'

The Leinster senior coach was quick to support his old scrum-half when times were tough at Welford Road earlier this season

TOP MAN: Leicester Tigers interim head coach Richard Wigglesworth takes his team to Dublin's Aviva Stadium this week. Pic: Joe Giddens/PA Wire

Richard Wigglesworth has benefited more than most from Stuart Lancaster’s coaching, but the Leicester Tigers boss will hope to make the Leinster leader pay for his guidance and support when the sides meet in Dublin on Good Friday.

Almost half of Wigglesworth’s 33 England caps were earned under Lancaster back in the early half of the last decade and the current interim coach at Welford Road had more recent reason to appreciate his old gaffer when he assumed his current role last December.

Steve Borthwick’s exit for the England job parachuted Wigglesworth into the hot seat on an interim basis – he joins the national setup himself at the season’s end – and an initial win at home to Gloucester proved something of a false dawn.

Two losses followed on the road, the Sale Sharks and Newcastle Falcons piling a combined 85 points onto the wrong side of the Tigers’ ledger. Tough times for the inexperienced 39-year old but Lancaster was among those to get in touch.

“He has been great for me,” said Wigglesworth who felt the older man was always destined to succeed in Dublin after the disappointing ending to his time with England in 2015. “I have had quite a few Zooms with Lanny. He really helps young coaches, I know he does that with loads of people and not just me.

“He rang me when we were in a tough spot, which I really appreciated. We had just (had) a couple of heavy defeats after I came in as boss and he reached out. So a sign of the quality coach and person that he is. Yeah, I’m really happy for him but not that happy that I am playing his juggernaut this week.” 

Juggernaut. It’s an interesting choice of words but one very much in keeping with the narrative he has been building this week ahead of a game against a team that, he says, is the “envy” of the world game.

Wigglesworth made the observation that Leinster can have 45 players in training on any given day. Leicester? They are working with just three fit second rows, he explained. You can see what he’s doing with all this.

The current coach was an assistant on the staff as well as the replacement scrum-half when they welcomed Leinster to Welford Road at this same quarter-final stage of the Heineken Champions Cup last season. Expectations at the time were stratospheric.

Leinster nixed all of that early doors, reaching half-time with a 20-0 lead and keeping the hosts at arm’s length for the rest of the afternoon. It was a salutary lesson in how to defuse a home crowd and win a game of knockout rugby.

As was the case then, these Tigers are on a decent run having won their last six games and Wigglesworth brings a personal knowledge of how to better the provincial giants having bettered them in the Aviva and in a Newcastle final in 2019 with Saracens.

He has lost to Leinster too but the theory for a time there was that Leo Cullen’s side – and Ireland – just couldn’t get it done against teams like Sarries and La Rochelle who brought that bit more physicality to the table.

Not anymore, said the Leicester chief.

“I would say they have definitely eradicated it, haven’t they? If you look at that La Rochelle final (last May), I watched that one and it was as dominant a game that you don’t win as possible.

“We get all the stats and the figures from that game and it was a game that they, quite rightly, felt aggrieved to lose. If La Rochelle are one of the biggest teams in Europe, and they have gone toe to toe with them in a physical battle and should have come out on the right side, then I would say that bit is closed off.”