World Cup-winning winger Richard Hill always kept a low profile during his playing days and appears to have changed little in his current role as England team manager, talent scout and a key assistant to Steve Borthwick.
England’s newest backrow player, Chandler Cunningham-South, has only just learned that the 50-year-old, who has given him a few tips over the last few years and “looks like he knows what he’s talking about” problem. He was speaking from considerable experience. “He found out I was playing in the World Cup probably three months ago,” Hill says. “Chandler isn’t that fussed about what’s happened in the past. He wanted to know why I didn’t tell him. I told him it had nothing to do with what we were trying to achieve, which was about him and not me.
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It’s a fitting anecdote from someone who was called “The Silent Assassin” during his playing days and was described by his great French rival Serge Betsen as someone who came “from the shadows, from the darkness”, exemplifying Hill’s role in England. Hill does not like to be in the spotlight and rarely speaks to the media in his more than seven years as team manager.
Hill began working for the Rugby Football Union in 2014, focusing on track development and in a mentoring role for back rowers. He was appointed team manager by Eddie Jones in 2016 and Hill’s role came to greater prominence when Borthwick took over a year ago. The current head coach relies heavily on him when it comes to identifying and developing talent, while he plays a key role in maintaining and developing club-country relations.
His influence is clearly visible when looking at England’s match squad in last weekend’s win over Italy. One of the first things Jones did as head coach was to task Hill with finding some open wingers in the days when England had plenty of “six-and-a-half” but not enough sevens. Soon after, Hill brought Sam Underhill, then playing for the Ospreys, to Jones’ attention, while Tom Curry, currently sidelined with a debilitating hip injury, regularly speaks of Hill’s influence on his career.
Ethan Roots, meanwhile, made his Rome debut and caught the eye of Hill Borthwick, who watched him play for Exeter in a Premiership Rugby Cup match when England were at the World Cup last year. “My experience with Richard Hill is that he is one of the best talent spotters,” Borthwick said. “If [he] “He tells me to watch one row ahead, and I listen.”
There is also Cunningham-South, who was just 20 years old (eight months) when Hill won the World Cup, but played a good role off the bench against Italy. “There’s no doubt he’s strong and aggressive,” Hill says. “He also has the physical skills that are important to break tackles and get the team to the winning line. We saw [against Italy] His cover tackle shows that he is prepared to hold his ground and makes sure to not only cover but dig his shoulder into someone’s ribs if necessary. And I quite liked it. “Yes, that is really attractive.”
So how does it feel to see the players he helped develop running towards the top team? “I’m absolutely delighted,” Hill says. “There are a lot of people in this administration who spend a lot of time watching rugby, trying to get the players to do the best they can. It is very important for us to see a player’s performance and to see the team win. Of course this will be satisfactory. But it’s a game. We can’t let this get resolved in the second game. It has to be constant.
“My personal experience tells me that the moment you think the article is finished, or the moment you achieve that in this environment, you are gone. Unfortunately the game continues. People are always looking for ways to beat the system. It’s not uncommon for a player to be outstanding and then a few games for the opposing team suddenly end: ‘I quite liked the look of him. We need to neutralize him.’ And then how you reinvent yourself is your skill set.
“Look at Richie McCaw. Everyone said they knew how he played; If you think then it will be easy to turn it off, right? Of course, there were periods where he was probably quieter, but then he found a different way of doing things, and that’s the challenge we have to put on every player coming through the system.”
Hill practices what he preaches, taking a look at England’s final U20 squad in last Friday night’s victory over Italy – Northampton back-rower Henry Pollock scored a hat-trick and is a name to watch out for – and will do so again against Wales this weekend. against.
Hill’s remit has expanded since Borthwick’s arrival and he features in “all Premiership games”. He says that there is no specific position he is looking for with a more holistic approach, but that narrow-minded and centre-oriented positions are positions where England particularly lacks depth and are undoubtedly on its agenda. Also touching on England’s relative lack of strength with the Vunipola brothers out of action and Manu Tuilagi, now 32, a weakening force.
“We have a club system coming into our international teams and obviously I think what we will try and do is develop as many players as possible,” Hill adds. “The nature of the sport is that they are not always going to be fit, so we have a bigger group because we have the widest range of players.
“Playing to the best of their ability allows training to be better, which allows them to challenge themselves more, which ultimately means it’s harder to get into positions in teams, games become much tougher and we have better players. I can’t say that I didn’t talk about a particular player, the back row player that I said as the centre, but I was given a vote of 99 to one, so we went along with it and kept it moving but because these conversations happen all the time.