Three ex-internationals from three unions ran the England succession on The Rugby Pod and landed on one name. In 2022 the RFU said it wanted an Englishman.
“This is me giving my quarter-English opinion: who I would want as coach? Andy Farrell, 100 per cent.”
Dan Biggar, 112 caps for Wales, said it on The Rugby Pod on Tuesday 15 September, six days after the RFU extended Steve Borthwick’s contract past the 2028 Six Nations. Conor O’Shea, the RFU’s performance director, called England’s Six Nations “horrendous” in the BBC interview that announced it, and gave the reason in one line: “You don’t want them looking for a job going into [a World Cup].”
Farrell is contracted to Ireland until the end of the 2031 World Cup, with a coaching ticket he was already looking to widen last winter, which is where every Andy Farrell England head coach conversation has stopped since June. Jim Hamilton’s answer to that took two words.
Should England’s next coach have to be English? Say so in the comments, then read on.
Andy Goode’s roll-call has an answer to every name
Goode, 17 caps for England, started it as a quiz.
“I’m staunch England. So England’s best period since ’03 was with who as a coach? Eddie… Ireland’s best period was with who? Faz and Joe Schmidt.”
Wales was the middle question, and its answer was Warren Gatland. The roll-call, as a table.
| Coach | From | Team | Years | Won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eddie Jones | Australia | England | 2015 to 2022 | 2016 Grand Slam, 2017 and 2020 titles, 2019 World Cup final |
| Warren Gatland | New Zealand | Wales | 2007 to 2019 | Grand Slams in 2008, 2012 and 2019, 2013 title, World Cup semi-finals in 2011 and 2019 |
| Joe Schmidt | New Zealand | Ireland | 2013 to 2019 | 2014 and 2015 titles, 2018 Grand Slam, first win over New Zealand in 2016, world No.1 in 2019 |
| Andy Farrell | England | Ireland | 2019 to now | 2023 Grand Slam, 2024 title, series win in New Zealand in 2022, Lions series win in Australia in 2025 |
Honours from the tournament records. None of the four held the passport of the team he coached.
Biggar added the fifth name himself: “France been pretty average for a while. Then they brought Shaun Edwards in.” Edwards, from Wigan, joined France after the 2019 World Cup. France have won a Grand Slam and the last two championships since.
Set against that, the current England coach’s ledger reads: 11 wins in 2025 and no title, then fifth in 2026 with one win and the first ever defeat to Italy.
No foreign coach has won a football World Cup. Biggar says that is the point.
He had checked the other sport.
“I looked at it in football. Do you know that there’s never been a foreign coach win the World Cup? And there’s only been one in the history of the Euros, a foreign coach to win, which was the German guy who won it with Greece.”
Otto Rehhagel, Portugal, 2004. Spain’s win over Argentina in New Jersey in July, under Luis de la Fuente, kept the World Cup at 23 tournaments and no foreign winner. Biggar’s “one person in 39 attempts” is one tournament light, in the direction that helps him.
His explanation is that the two sports have different summits.
“In football maybe the pinnacle of football is playing for Real Madrid, Barcelona, Man United, whatever. And maybe you need someone with that national identity to bring those players together in a football environment. Maybe in rugby, we all know in rugby the pinnacle of playing rugby is international. So do you need… just the best man for the job?”
Hamilton, 63 caps for Scotland, put the counter-case. “Does it not show you though, Bigs, that the two best teams in the world and the most successful teams in the world are South Africa and New Zealand, and they’ve always had their head guy as a native?”
Biggar took the point and kept his conclusion.
“That’s the argument against it… I just found it interesting that you look at the northern hemisphere teams, their best periods have been when they haven’t employed [their own]… My thing is, it doesn’t matter. Clearly does in football, because nobody’s been successful who isn’t from that country, whether it’s a Euros or World Cup. One person in 39 attempts. But in rugby, Ireland’s best period, Wales’s best period, England’s best period since the World Cup has been with a non-Englishman, non-Irishman, non-Welshman.”
The RFU wanted an Englishman. It said so in 2022.
The nationality question is not the pod’s invention. In April 2022, with Jones still in post, O’Shea told Sky Sports: “I want them to be English and I believe [they] should be.” Bill Sweeney, the chief executive, said “the preference would be to have an English set-up” and “we believe we’ve got such a wealth of English coaches in the game.”
They appointed Borthwick that December.
Last week O’Shea backed him past a World Cup, telling the BBC: “I see in Steve someone who bleeds England, and wants England to succeed more than anything you can imagine.” Mike Henson, writing the BBC’s analysis of the deal, called the extra six months “no fresh or significant vote of confidence”.
One more O’Shea line from the same interview belongs next to Farrell’s name. Of the Lancaster staff that left after the 2015 World Cup, in Henson’s account, O’Shea said: “Nobody had the gumption to say they are the right people.” Farrell was on that staff. He joined Ireland the following year.
Read also: how England won 11 games in 2025 and still lost the Six Nations.
Andy Farrell England head coach: there is no one else, and Ireland have him until 2031
Hamilton got to the name before Biggar did. “There is no one else.”
Goode took it from there.
“Imagine right now if we had Faz as our head coach, we being England, and I’m sat with a Scotsman, a Welshman, me and Rob, we’d be thinking about the World Cup, going, if we got Faz, we’ve got a chance, I think. And then you go, we’ve got Steve as our head coach, and everyone goes…”
He did not finish the sentence. Hamilton finished it for him.
“In rugby you need more, and this is where the South African cultural cut-through, the Dave Rennie, and he’s brought in that Māori back in, because he understands in a contact sport where you have got to go to the depths of… chaos, as you know, right, we’ve all been there, needs to be something extra to win a World Cup, I think, and to go week on week and to look into the man that is conducting the orchestra’s eyes. And in Andy Farrell, I just think, and I know it didn’t work out before, for whatever reason… Steve doesn’t do that for the team… I just think he doesn’t get the best out of his tools that he’s got… But I think Andy Farrell is the guy. However, hook or crook, you need to bring him back.”
Goode: “That’s chips out, because he signed an extended deal with Ireland till about, when’s that, 2031.”
Hamilton: “But you don’t know. Again, contract. Buy him out.”
Farrell’s deal, signed on 5 June, runs to the end of the 2031 World Cup. By the time the RFU’s “time to look properly” arrives, after the 2027 final in Sydney on 13 November next year, Farrell will be halfway through a deal that ends in the United States. Buying him out means asking the IRFU to sell the coach who won a series in New Zealand and a Lions series in Australia inside three years.
Biggar’s line on contracts was about Borthwick, and it cuts both ways. “We all know contracts aren’t really worth the paper they’re written on anyway, because if the RFU want to get rid of Steve tomorrow, they’ll get rid of him.” True of Farrell’s too. At a price.
The argument is about a passport. The complaint is not.
Strip the nationality out and what the three of them are saying about Borthwick is simpler.
Hamilton: “I just think he doesn’t get the best out of his tools that he’s got.” Goode: “You’re so far out of touch with what the fans think if Conor O’Shea sits there and thinks all the fans are right behind Steve and think he’s the man.” Biggar, the most sympathetic of the three, still opened with “England cannot finish fifth” before he got to the calendar: Australia and Japan at home in November, four wins in a row after Fiji and Argentina in July, then the All Blacks.
Nobody on the pod thinks the World Cup is lost. All three think the ceiling is.
The table settles the passport question. Four coaches, three nationalities, and not one of them born in the country he coached. What the RFU said in 2022 was a preference, and a preference is the first thing a union drops after losing to Italy. The English-coach preference and the contract system that keeps its players in England come from the same instinct. One of them will go first.
On the record: Borthwick coaches England in Australia, the RFU opens its search in the week after the final on 13 November 2027, and it does not open in Dublin, because nobody at Twickenham is going to ring the IRFU with a cheque for a coach contracted to 2031. Screenshot it.
Your turn
Two ways to see it. One: the best coach for the job, whoever holds his passport, and if that is Andy Farrell then the RFU should at least find out what the IRFU would want for him. Two: a union that said in 2022 it should be developing its own coaches cannot hire Ireland’s without admitting the whole plan failed. English coach, or best coach? Settle it below.
Frequently asked
Who did The Rugby Pod pick as the next England head coach? Dan Biggar said “Andy Farrell, 100 per cent”, Jim Hamilton said “there is no one else” and “buy him out”, and Andy Goode said England would feel they had “a chance” at the World Cup with Farrell in charge. All three were speaking hypothetically. Farrell is contracted to Ireland until the end of the 2031 World Cup.
Has a foreign coach ever won a football World Cup or European Championship? No coach has won the World Cup with a country other than his own in 23 tournaments, and Spain’s Luis de la Fuente kept that record in July. Otto Rehhagel, a German, won Euro 2004 with Greece, the only foreign winner in 17 European Championships.
Does the RFU want an English head coach? In April 2022 Conor O’Shea told Sky Sports “I want them to be English and I believe [they] should be”, and Bill Sweeney said “the preference would be to have an English set-up”. England’s best years since 2003 came under Eddie Jones, an Australian.
