{"id":30030,"date":"2025-04-18T10:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T10:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30030\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T10:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T10:58:10","slug":"england-internationals-untold-shaun-edwards-story-leaves-wales-legends-with-head-in-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30030\/","title":{"rendered":"England international&#8217;s untold Shaun Edwards story leaves Wales legends with head in hands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a vintage, albeit comical, psychological play from Shaun Edwards.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_shanks.jpg\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Phil Vickery&#8217;s story left Tom Shanklin and Scott Quinnell in stitches(Image: Sky Sports )<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Former England international Phil Vickery has revealed a new Shaun Edwards story that left two Wales legends in stitches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Vickery appeared on the latest episode of The Overlap&#8217;s Stick To Rugby podcast with Scott Quinnell, Tom Shanklin, Lawrence Dallaglio and Katy Daley-McLean. <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/walesrugby.substack.com\/subscribe?coupon=7b6a76da\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"[object Object]Link opens in a new tab.\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Of course, Vickery played under Edwards for London Wasps while the northern Englishman was coach there with <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/all-about\/warren-gatland\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Warren Gatland<\/a>. The World Cup winner was with hometown club Gloucester for nine years of his career before moving on, and he explained on Stick To Rugby that he had a trademark introduction to Edwards&#8217; demeanour when he went to an analysis session with the squad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;I remember walking into an analysis session at Wasps with Shaun Edwards, who is absolutely wired up the wrong way anyway, as we all know,&#8221; began Vickery. &#8220;I can\u2019t remember who the game was against but Loll (Dallaglio) didn\u2019t have his best game, which is unusual because he was fairly steady. And there was a lot of walking around at ruck time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;Shaun says: &#8216;Surprise, surprise, Lawrence Dallaglio walking again&#8217;, everyone is in the room, all the academy guys (laughing). You can see him (Dallaglio) going redder and redder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;The best bit of all was at the end of the session when it all finished everyone was coming out and Shaun is stood there with a little tin with some coins in it asking the boys for some money for Loll\u2019s sponsored walk. You can see him absolutely firing up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Quinnell, Shanklin and Daly-McLean were cracking up as Dallaglio just sat and smiled, before he added: &#8220;It was me one week, the following week it was Matt Dawson. &#8216;Box kick, surprise f*****g surprise, box kick in the stands. Is your dad in the f*****g stands or what?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;He used to leave little notes on the board for players after games,&#8221; said Shanklin. &#8220;Like \u2013 &#8216;Work on your blitz defence&#8217;. And there would always be a funny note in there. Ian Evans, who probably wasn\u2019t the most disciplined player, (his note said) \u2013 &#8216;f*****g discipline&#8217;. And that was it!<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;Going on about him, that was the beauty, his simplicity,&#8221; remarked Vickery. &#8220;I remember arriving, he was a hero of mine, I used to go out watching <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/all-about\/rugby-league\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">rugby league<\/a> and Wigan was my team and I just wanted to meet the guy. I remember walking up thinking: &#8216;Oh my God, he&#8217;s coming over&#8217;. He walked straight over to me, looks me straight in the eye and said: &#8216;Get you back to best in world&#8217;. Turned round and walked off!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Quinnell added: &#8220;Shaun would pass me the ball (from a short distance) as fast as if he was passing at 30 yards, it hit my chest, bounced off. I said: &#8216;Shaun\u2026&#8217; He looked at me in the eye and went: &#8216;It\u2019s my job to pass it, it\u2019s your job to catch it.&#8217; I thought &#8211; good argument, fair play!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Edwards and Quinnell were team-mates together at Wigan back in the 1990s. Wales legend Quinnell made his code switch from union to league in 1994 and won a league championship and two caps for Wales before returning to union two seasons later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">If you would like to watch the full episode of Stick To Rugby, <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vOLZcVPY7OM\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">then click here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a vintage, albeit comical, psychological play from Shaun Edwards.Phil Vickery&#8217;s story left Tom Shanklin and Scott&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,4884,17965,17963,16,15,14260,17964],"class_list":{"0":"post-30030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scott-quinnell","12":"tag-shaun-edwards","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-wales-rugby-team","16":"tag-wasps-rugby"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114358616305283782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}