England’s worst-kept secret Guy Pepper is about to go mainstream

Everyone, it seems, remembers the first time they laid eyes on Guy Pepper. For Lee Dickson, the former England scrum-half who coached Pepper at Barnard Castle, it was on the school’s tour of South Africa.

“It was one of those moments when the hair stands up on the back of your neck,” Dickson told Telegraph Sport. “Straight away, you are like ‘this kid got something special’. When you are playing in South Africa, you are up against really big, physical players and a hostile crowd, and he just took the game by the scruff of the neck. He looked head and shoulders above the South Africans. He was like a cheat code.”

For Johann van Graan, Bath’s head of rugby, the epiphany occurred when reviewing footage of Newcastle’s defeat by Saracens, in which Pepper made a Premiership record 35 tackles. He resolved to sign the flanker there and then and has since made a lofty comparison to Richie McCaw, the All Blacks legend.

Half an hour was all it took for Steve Borthwick to come on board the Sgt Pepper Club bandwagon, having been pointed in his direction by another all-time great back-rower. “It was Richard Hill who said to me, ‘you need to go and meet Guy Pepper’,” Borthwick said. “His ball-carrying, the power contact and his footwork. He only played about 30 minutes that day because he got injured. He went off but in that 30 minutes I thought this guy’s a real talent.”

For a long time, Pepper was like the cool up-and-coming indie band; the type that hipsters will say if you know, you know. Gradually, however, word of Pepper has spread as he delivered man-of-the-match performances in both the Premiership semi-final and final before going on to make his England debut on the summer tour of Argentina. His performances in South America left a number of England’s coaching staff practically swooning at his work rate.

Yet by starting against Australia in what will be his first Test at Twickenham on Saturday, Pepper will be effectively swapping Brixton Academy for the bright lights of the Pyramid Stage.

England are absolutely stacked with dynamic opensides but some qualified judges believe Pepper may be the best of the lot as a true triple threat who can tackle, jackal and carry to an elite standard. And yet speak to those around him and they say his most impressive quality is his personality. Richard Wigglesworth immediately highlighted Pepper’s “diligence”, which was separately endorsed by England captain Maro Itoje.

“I always think this is the more impressive thing about people and the more accurate predictor of long-term success, but it is his mentality in and around training, his mentality to want to get better, want to learn and get across his detail,” Itoje said. “That will put him in good stead for years to come.

“You can tell when someone is really giving their all or really diligent about their preparation and wanting to get better, whether through the questions they ask or the top-ups after training. It’s through how accurate they are with their training as opposed to senior guys having to tell them how to do it. All that is in his general demeanour and it has shown through his performances for England so far, as well as for Bath.”

This was much the same attitude that Pepper took at Barnard Castle. At schoolboy level, the best players often find things so easy against lower-standard opposition that they develop bad habits that inhibit their professional career. That was never true of Pepper, said Dickson.

“Through his whole school career, he was like a man against boys, but there was never any arrogance or selfishness with it,” Dickson said. “At Barnie, we had this sixth form centre and I would like to watch how our players interacted with others. He would go around and speak to younger lads and girls and generally socialise with them.

“He had that leadership quality within him. He has no hint of arrogance. He does not put himself on a pedestal. I have three boys and they all look up to him and talk about how Guy used to babysit them.”

Asked to sum up his own approach to the game, Pepper told Telegraph Sport: “Fight for everything. Never give up. In the back of my head my main goal is to get the ball back for the team.

“As an openside you want to get the ball back, you want to be dominant, you want to add that extra oommph to your collisions.”

The apple has not fallen far from the tree. Martin Pepper was also a rugged openside for Harlequins, although Guy’s father, speaking from a holiday in Ibiza, downplayed that comparison.

“I was nowhere near as good or abrasive,” Martin said. “It was a different game back then. Everything he does is based on work rate. He will not stop until he has to. That’s been him from day dot.”

Not that everything has been plain sailing. Aged six, he was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, a condition for which he still requires fortnightly injections.

“It was scary,” Martin said. “It was the not knowing when you have a young child who is not very well. It started when we noticed him limping while he was playing which is unusual for him. It got worse from there. His joints, ankles and fingers were particularly sore. He would wake up in the middle of the night in crippling pain. But we had some fantastic support from the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. You have your bumps in your life and he has overcome it.”

Martin will be back from Ibiza to watch Guy make his full Test home bow along with the rest of the family, including his brother Max – a scrum-half for Bristol Bears – as English rugby’s worst-kept secret is finally revealed to a wider audience.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]