So often sports cross-pollinate: sharing ideas from one discipline to another, exchanging mindsets and capitalising on strengths. Rugby is no different.
And while some of the game’s leading lights step into completely different sports – such as Gilbert Enoka, responsible for New Zealand Rugby’s “no dickheads” policy, joining Chelsea – others stay closer to home, as with the influx of rugby league coaches at the highest level of European rugby union.
Steve Borthwick, England’s head coach of four months, is rugby union through and through, but his trusty defence coach Kevin Sinfield played for league powerhouse Leeds Rhinos more than 500 times.
World in union
Borthwick’s captain Owen Farrell was brought up in rugby league territory with his father a Wigan Warriors triple centurion. Andy Farrell is now head coach of world No1 side Ireland, who have just won a Grand Slam Six Nations title ahead of this year’s World Cup.
Across the English channel, among the flair and flamboyance of Fabien Galthie and Raphael Ibanez is the gritty and dogged Shaun Edwards, former Wigan Warriors player and Welsh rugby defensive revolutionary.
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