Will Greenwood MBE – A Career in Rugby Union

By KevT
April 7 2006

It is fitting that Will Greenwood should contemplate the end of his rugby career at Twickenham against a team who still hold the old amateur ethos dear. Will has graced the Twickenham stage and seen many of his finest moments there but Will started his rugby career in Lancashire

playing with his father and started representative rugby before the game became professional.

Will Greenwood was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, the son of former England Captain and England Head Coach Dick Greenwood. He spent his early childhood in Italy as his father moved there to teach and to play Rugby in Rome. Will moved back to Lancashire and won a sports bursary to Sedbergh School (where former Harlequins and England inside centre Will Carling had been educated). At that time Will was playing Fly Half or Full Back and went on to represent Lancashire Schools at both Rugby and Cricket.

According to Will’s autobiography his cricket career ended when, having taken time off from cricket to revise, he was “found on the end of about five creamy bitters”. He was stripped of the cricket captaincy and banned from going on the end of season tours. It was fortunate for his rugby career that exams did not take place in the rugby season.

Will went on to captain Lancashire schools and was then selected for the England trial at Fly Half and scored three tries. This performance was only rewarded with a place on the bench for the England vs Australia match as a Fly Half called Paul Burke (who was to become a Harlequins team mate) was selected ahead of him. Will never left the bench for that match. Will has never tired of reminding Burkey of the injustice of of that selection and those who witnessed a Quins win over Bath with Will scoring the winning try playing at Fly Half will always remember him pointing to the number 10 on his back. Incidentally a young Tony Diprose was in the starting XV for the England match at blindside flanker.

“Shaggy” once again, followed Will Carling’s path to Durham University where he read Economics and it was here that he moved from Fly Half to centre and in the summer of 1993 he was selected for the England Under 21 side.

Will graduated in 1994 with a 2.1 (a pretty good degree for a rugby player) and got a job as a trader at Midland Global Markets (HSBC for younger readers). Rugby Union was still an amateur game and like a few in the City, Will made his way down to Harlequins and started playing in the 1994/95 season. On Tuesday’s and Thursday’s Will would catch the train from Waterloo and head for the Stoop to train. Will started off as Full Back for Quins as Will Carling was partnering Peter Mensah in the centre. Carling’s international absences meant that Will got a bit of game time at centre and he made the England ‘A’ side at the end of that season.

At the end of that season Will went on tour with the ‘A’ side whilst the England squad went to South Africa for the Rugby World Cup. It was after this World Cup that the prospect of professional rugby began to emerge. Will’s rugby career began to take off in 1995/96 but he was finding it hard to break into the full England side with Carling, Guscott and De Glanville all finding favour with the England Coach Jack Rowell. Will played four games for the England ‘A’ that season and captained the side.

At the end of that season Will went to Dick Best, the Quins coach to see how much he would be offered to turn professional. At the time no one had a benchmark for the going wage for professional rugby and Will was offered half of the salary he was earning in the City. Will went on a summer tour to West Africa (there was no England tour) and roomed with Dean Richards and it was following that tour that discussions started with Peter Wheeler at Leicester about joining them. In negotiations Will was offered double his City salary and decided to move to the Midlands.

Greenwood hands off a few Bath tacklers ©Barquin Mad

In 1997 Will had a successful season with the Tigers winning the Pilkington Cup but losing to Brive in the European cup Final. The icing on the cake for Will personally was selection for the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa. Will didn’t make the test side as it was an impossible job to split the legendary pairing of Scott Gibbs and Jeremy Guscott but he gave some excellent performances. Unfortunately for him the tour will always be remembered for him being laid out unconscious after an awkward tackle. He was rushed to the treatment room and was minutes away from an emergency tracheotomy, but thankfully he was revived. Coincidentally that was one of the few days when Will had not worn the number 13 and when he had not cut off the sleeves from his shirt. Since then he has always worn the 13 and been sleeveless.

The 1997/98 season saw Will make his debut under Clive Woodward for England against Australia in an autumn series of internationals where he came up against Andrew Mehrtens (who scored 21 points against England at Twickenham). Unfortunately it was also the beginning of a two year period where injury marred Will’s career. His shoulder has never been strong and he was also beset by groin injuries. Leicester failed to secure silverware that season and Bob Dwyer made way for Dean Richards who was appointed Head Coach. Will missed the tour from hell that season due to the need to undergo a shoulder operation.

He missed virtually the whole of the 1998/99 season but was selected for the 1999 World Cup and played his part although England were to lose to South Africa and the boot of Jannie De Beer. In the 1999/2000 season Will was dropped by Dean Richards after a disastrous loss to Glasgow and hardly played again for Leicester.

In the summer of 2000, Will was considering giving up rugby when he was approached by Mark Evans at Harlequins. At the time Mark was Chief Executive, Zinzan Brooke was Head Coach and Richard Hill was backs coach. Mark had recruited Keith Wood, Paul Burke and Niall Woods. I’ll let Mark take the story up:

“Well if you remember back to the summer of 2000 we only had seven players under contract so we were looking for one or two! I was approached by Will's agent to say that he was looking to move from Leicester and would we be interested . Richard Hill had coached Will with England A and he was a fan, as was I, so the deal was quite straightforward.”

It was in that season that Will was to score the try that many Quins fans claim to have been the finest they have seen in a multi coloured shirt. The report on the Harlequins website describes the moment.

“Then on 63 minutes came Greenwood's moment of magic. Powell caught a chip ahead deep inside his own twenty-two and shipped possession onto Burke. With the home side expecting the Irish fly half to clear his lines, Burke found Greenwood with a long pass. The centre was in space and set off on his mesmerising run. Greenwood initially looked for support but with defenders fanned out to take likely recipients of the pass, he just kept going. Before he knew it he was up over halfway with the Brive try line getting ever closer. With Philipe Lapoutage still in his way, Greenwood headed for the right hand corner, comfortably avoiding Lapoutage's despairing lunge to score. Burke added the conversion and Quins were back in front 13-17 and a semi-final spot was looming.

That win helped Quins get to the semi final of the Heineken Shield, a competition they were to win with a 42-33 defeat of Narbonne. The only sour point in that season for Will was defeat in the Pilkington Cup Final against Newcastle by 27-30.

That season also saw Will score a hat trick of tries against Wales and he made the Lions tour to Australia. Unfortunately, this tour was also to be marred by injury.

The 2002 year year was tragic for Will as he and his partner Caro lost their son Freddie but he will always be remembered for the dignified way in which he conducted himself and for the significant amount of money that he and Caro have raised for charity.

The 2003 season was dominated by the World Cup in Austarliaand was the highlight of Will’s career. Crucial tries against South Africa and Wales saw England through those dificult rounds but his celebrations were cut short by the news that his wife Caro was having problems with another pregnancy. Will rushed back to London but all was well and he returned to help England win the World Cup by 25 – 14 against Australia on that memorable November day in Sydney.

Will’s son Archie was born in 2004 and he continued to represent England although the national team were hit by a number of retirements. The 2004/05 season saw Will suffer from his troublesome shoulder injury and this did not help Quins in their fight against relegation. Unfortunately Quins finished bottom but Will pledged his allegiance to the club and has helped them secure a place back in the Premiership. Will was selected for the Lions tour and for a test match against New Zealand.

In February 2006, Will announced his retirement from rugby. The 2005/06 season shows a kind of symmetry in that Will has returned to playing against part time players in places like Sedgley Park and sinking a couple of beers in grounds throughout England just as he did at the start of his career when rugby was an amateur game. Perhaps his retirement marks the end of an era.

What is certainly true is that he has graced the game with his vision, his timing of the pass and his tries. We will miss him.