Lions assistant coach Richard Wigglesworth has seen another side of Johnny Sexton on this Lions tour to Australia after years of playing and coaching against him.
Former Ireland fly-half Sexton, below, is mainly helping the kickers in Australia but he, ex-England scrum-half Wigglesworth and Andrew Goodman all have input into the attack.
The trio linked up remotely under Andy Farrell before the Lions went to Portugal ahead of the Argentina game in Dublin but have now had six weeks together to get things clicking.
And Wigglesworth insisted putting together the game plan is a team project and not one that is forced on them by Farrell.
Working with Sexton
He said: “I’ve really enjoyed working with Johnny, he is so very different than what he was on the field.
“I’m maybe similar, but without the extreme that Johnny was onthe field and off it. We’ve had a good few debates about some matchups we had and we’ve had some good fun talking about it.
“He obviously has great knowledge, a good eye for what’s going on, and just wants to help, like we all do.
“Andy wanted it to be as collaborative as possible and us bouncing ideas off each other, with everyone feeling like they can contribute.
“It helps that I’ve got on with those two really well – they’re top coaches and more importantly top men.
“It was harder over Zoom, for sure, but once we were together it was great. When you are trying to discuss ideas and whatever over Zoom, it was horrible, but as soon as we got together I quickly found out how knowledgeable they were.
“The boys have done well, attack is always the hardest thing and naturally it’s going to look a bit clunky at times but there are some reasons for that.
“We haven’t got the breakdown quite right in a couple of games and there’s not a team in world rugby that looks good without a decent breakdown.”
Team Selection
The Lions team for yesterday’s first Test was announced to the squad on Wednesday and released publicly the next day after weeks of deliberation.
Wigglesworth added: “It was very conversational as it always has been the whole way through, as it was with the selection process originally.
“Andy was willing to be challenged on it with everyone being able to voice an opinion and then we come back to it and back to it again.
“It wasn’t very, ‘this is the team, this is final‘. The length of time varied from two to three hours in the different times we’ve done it. It certainly wasn’t easy.”
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