England turn to cricket counterparts for tips in bid to strike Australia blow

Steve Borthwick’s England side are hoping to strike an early Ashes blow after plotting alongside their cricketing counterparts for their upcoming meetings with Australia.

England host the Wallabies at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham this weekend as they begin their Quilter Nations Series campaign just a few weeks before Brendon McCullum’s side play the first Test against Australia in Perth.

There are plenty of friendships across the two camps, with back row Ben Earl a school mate of opener Zak Crawley and hooker Jamie George a co-founder of a west London bar alongside McCullum and several other cricketing fixtures.

Ahead of their Anglo-Australian contests, key coaches from the two sides met up to pick each other’s brains as they target twin sporting success in the coming weeks.

“We actually met Brendon McCullum and his coaching staff a few weeks ago and his coaching staff and had a sit down and a coffee with him in Manchester, which was very enjoyable,” rugby defence coach Richard Wigglesworth explained, revealing that McCullum objected to their use of the term ‘Bazball’.

“They'll go out and give it a great dig, as all the English teams that we've got playing against them want to. It's a great rivalry isn't it? Both sides really enjoy playing against each other because there's something there. Hopefully we stick one on the board on Saturday

“[We talked] a lot of mindset stuff. I asked him around how he changed that in English cricket, which was really interesting. But then we got into the technicalities of coaching someone one-on-one, what that looks like, his role as head coach in that, versus his assistants who we had with him.

“I wouldn't want to say there was one main thing because we sat for a good period of time and took loads from it, but they're on to a good thing.”

Wigglesworth has taken on duty for the defence this November having previously overseen England’s attack. The former scrum half served as an assistant coach on the British and Irish Lions tour in the summer, helping them to a 2-1 series victory over the Wallabies.

England’s blitz defence was ripped apart by Australia at Twickenham last year in a thrilling contest, but have since pared back their approach – though Wigglesworth has promised that his side will be “dynamic” without the ball as they look to start kick off their campaign with a win.

“We definitely want a dynamic defence. What does that look like? Building on what we've got now. What I'm not going to do is go, ‘this defence has to change because of me and what I believe’.

“I think there are coaches who can coach both sides of the ball, no problem. I like to think I'm one of them.”

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