Watching a live match with an England coach - and what they look out for: Richard Wigglesworth reveals the trends he tracks, how he evaluates players in the stands and what he learned from the Red Arrows

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It’s 5pm on Saturday evening and Richard Wigglesworth is waiting outside the ticket office at the CorpAcq Stadium.

‘This is my brother-in-law, Adrian, and my nephew, Henry,’ says the England coach, introducing his relatives who have joined him to watch Sale’s Champions Cup match against South African side Sharks.

‘I’m following in my uncle’s footsteps, you know,’ jokes Henry, who plays scrum-half for a junior team at Preston Grasshoppers.

Wigglesworth leads us up the stairway to our seats where we bump into his old team-mate, Mark Cueto. ‘Do you want a beer, mate?’ asks Cueto, but kick-off is fast approaching and Wigglesworth is here for work, rather than pleasure.

Like most of the England coaching team, Wigglesworth goes to watch a club match most Saturdays or Sundays and last weekend he allowed Daily Mail Sport to join him and learn what exactly it is they are looking out for.

‘When I go and watch a live game, I usually want to look at someone off the ball,’ explains Wigglesworth as he takes his seat, high up on the halfway line. ‘The real details you will see on the computer when I get home, so I’m looking for things you can’t see on a computer. Instant decisions, work off the ball, body language.

Daily Mail Sport's Nik Simon joins England coach Richard Wigglesworth (left) at Sale's match against Sharks on Saturday   

Wigglesworth is one of head coach Steve Borthwick's key men and feeds back to the England boss from the games he watches around the country  

‘Sale operate a similar way to England in the backfield so I’ll look at what George Ford is like there. Bevan Rodd has had a few games back from injury now so I’ll be looking at things like how he gets off the floor and the intensity of his collisions.

‘You also look for trends. I often watch a live game as a bit of an exercise to ask, “What would you do as a coach? What would your messaging be at half-time? What would you change?” It’s practising your eye for that.’

As the match kicks off, Wigglesworth explains how every game is clipped up by a team of analysts and uploaded to an online platform. It is broken down into specific areas and available for the likes of Wigglesworth, England attack coach Lee Blackett and head coach Steve Borthwick to analyse within hours of the final whistle.

‘I’ll have this game ready to download by late tonight or early tomorrow morning,' he says. 'We get sent a four-view by the analysts. The owners are called Hudl and then we have this software called Sportscode. Every player, every carry, every tackle, every ruck, every kick chase.

‘It’s called the matrix. If I want to go back and watch Tom Curry’s tackles then I can go in and they’re sorted by height, dominance and everything in between. There’s an online platform where you can leave comments and then we have everything clipped up.’

In an early defensive stand, Wigglesworth takes note of Rodd’s double shot on a South African forward. ‘That was a good shot from Bev and Tom Curry,’ he observes.

‘Just watch the way Tom looks up and gets in the right place to slow the ball down. He is as good a player off the ball as you’ll find. How he moves and his desire to be in the right position. He has a physical and mental intensity about him that’s incredibly impressive. What he puts into a tackle and a kick chase… he brings another level to it.’

Sitting in one of the highest seats in the ground, we have a clear view of the entire pitch. Most rugby coaches prefer this - to have a blanket view of the playing area. It offers more perspective of player positioning. Luis Enrique, the manager of football team Paris Saint-Germain, has even swapped his touchline position for the stand after learning from rugby.

Wigglesworth was impressed with George Ford (pictured). 'Look at George now. He’s very good in these moments. Everyone’s blowing but he’s getting them ready for the next action'  

Tom Curry's work off the ball also drew praise. 'Just watch the way Tom looks up and gets in the right place to slow the ball down. He is as good a player off the ball as you’ll find'

‘There’s a reason why football managers stand down there,’ explains Wigglesworth. 'You can give off an energy. You can see (Sale coach) Al Sanderson down there now… he prefers it.

‘I think having a bird’s eye view gives you the best chance of seeing everything that’s going on,’ says Wigglesworth. ‘As long as you trust the guys down there to deliver a message really succinctly. (With England) we’ve got people like Kev Sinfield and Tom Harrison who run on for us. We know what each other’s language is like.’

Beneath our noses, young English centre Rekeiti Ma’asi-White sets off on a charge out of his own half that gets Sale into opposition territory. The move breaks down and George Ford darts between players, patting them on the back and barking out instructions about the next play.

‘Look at George now. He’s very good in these moments. Everyone’s absolutely blowing but he’s getting around them, getting them ready for the next action. You can see from his body language.

‘Rekeiti’s a direct centre and he’s effective at it. You always look at combinations and it’s great to have someone that direct when you’ve got players like George Ford and Rob du Preez either side of you. At Saracens, I played with Brad Barritt for a long time who was as good a defender and target as you’ll get. We had Alex Goode as full-back as a big second set of eyes and they complemented each other really well. We’re lucky at England that we’ve got three 10s of international standard and they’re all class to work with.’

Half-time approaches and Adrian pops off to fetch some chips. Oasis booms through the stadium sound system and a few punters shrug their shoulders at the end of an error-ridden half that ends 7-3. Wigglesworth has no vested interest in the success of specific Prem clubs, although he naturally wants to see English sides beat international opposition.

‘Tough half,’ he says. So what would Wigglesworth’s coaching message be? ‘The Sharks have come with a bit of that South African line-speed where they blitz. On a cold night when things aren’t quite working, if you make errors around the halfway line then you put yourself under a bit of pressure. I think Sale should kick the ball a bit longer.   

‘George is one of the best in the world at winning the territory battle, so do that and try to get around the blitz a little bit more. It’s how many times can you create possession around the 22. If you can tighten up the contact area, be a little bit more dynamic, then the line speed has to sit on its heels a little bit longer. Sale are the better team but it’s error strewn…’

Sale ran out 26-10 winners against the side from Durban after three second-half tries

Wigglesworth, who coached with the Lions last summer, is also looking for new trends. 'There are always little innovations in the game,' he says 

During the interval, Wigglesworth talks about life away from work. He has sent his son, Freddie, to his old boarding school and loves nothing more than going to watch him play for Kirkham Grammar on a Saturday morning. ‘You have to drop him off an hour early so I usually go on a run while he’s warming up or watch half a game on my laptop,’ he explains.

The ambitious manager of Huddersfield Town, Lee Grant, sends his children to the same school and they often share coaching notes. It is an all-consuming job for both of them. Wigglesworth is tipped as a future England head coach and his commitment is clear to see. He quickly checks his phone before the second half begins. The England coaches have a WhatsApp group which frequently flashes up with messages and video clips from games around the country.

‘The WhatsApp group is mostly business but we play padel on Friday afternoons during camps, down at Wimbledon. That usually finds its way into the chat and we have a bit of fun,' he says.

‘I’ve known Lee since we were at school and we’ve played sports against each other since we were 11. He went to King Edward's which was 10 minutes away. He was good at cricket and tennis, so he’s pretty good at padel. (Defence expert) Byron McGuigan knows all the tactics and Tim Percival (the media manager) thinks he’s class but we make him run!’

Do they socialise together away from the job? ‘We have a good group,' he says. 'After the autumn, we spent an afternoon with the Red Arrows. We didn’t fly in them but we went to see how they work. (Head of Performance) Phil Morrow and Steve organised it. The Red Arrows are incredibly elite and work together as a team. How they feed back to each other, the briefing, the debriefs on how their flight went. That was very interesting.’

Ford gets the second half back underway and Wigglesworth explains how he will feed back to his fellow coaches on Monday. They speak regularly on Zoom calls and try to meet in person every couple of weeks.

‘We meet in different areas. Manchester, Bristol, London. This week we’re meeting in Warwick, near Lee. You talk about what happened at the weekend but we’ll also have an agenda. One or two of us will be presenting on a particular area of the game; the tackle, the ruck, defensive patterns, opportunities we might want to explore.

‘You might present on something like contestable kicking. Teams that were not traditionally contestable kicking teams, Argentina for example, are now doing it because of the law changes. It used to be quite a closed episode of the game, because you knew you mostly were coming down with the ball, but there’s a lot more chaos around that area now.

Wigglesworth with England head coach Steve Borthwick. 'We have a good group,' he says. 'After the autumn, we spent an afternoon with the Red Arrows. We didn’t fly in them but we went to see how they work'

‘I’m happy with what I saw from Bevan Rodd (centre),’ says Wigglesworth as the final whistle blows. 'I’ll watch it again on the four-view tomorrow and have a closer look at the contacts'

‘It’s working on how you can be most effective around that. There are always little innovations in the game. We’ve seen the little dummy circle ball recently and everyone will jump on that for a couple of weeks. Those things are interesting, but the biggest things will always be collisions, how you move the ball, how in sync everyone is, having belief in what you’re doing, your set-piece.’

In the second half, as the winter chill kicks in, Sale’s set-piece begins to fire. Rodd scores a close-range try to add some polish to his appraisal and the hosts wrap up a bonus point victory.

‘I’m happy with what I saw from Bev,’ says Wigglesworth as the final whistle blows. 'I’ll watch it again on the four-view tomorrow and have a closer look at the contacts.

‘I’ll scoot home now, grab some dinner and watch the Leicester match. My daughter, Margot, and Fred are mad into The Traitors so we might have that on. The Traitors on  the TV and the rugby on my laptop… that shows who makes the decisions in our house!’