Bath’s Guy Pepper tells Hugh Godwin about his international hopes, what position he’d like to play and how he overcame debilitating pain as a six-year-old
Picture the scene: as an England training session winds down, less than a fortnight before their autumn series starts with a Twickenham firecracker against Australia, three back-rowers remain on the field, conversing on turnovers, comparing angles of attack and how to get in and out and away.
Two of them are youngsters in Guy Pepper and Emeka Ilione – the other is an older hand in Sam Underhill.
“You get yourself in those positions because you’re beating your man into that position,” Pepper tells The i Paper.
While he is only chatting about jackalling, the words could be just as relevant to the battle for back-row selection.
A changing squad
Pepper is jostling for a place against Australia (Photo: Getty)
The subject was given a twist last week when England’s head coach Steve Borthwick reacted to Tom Willis moving from Saracens to French club Bordeaux Begles next season by dropping the No 8 from both the autumn squad and consideration for the 2027 World Cup.
It left Pepper, Ilione (the 23-year-old new face from Leicester) and Underhill along with Ben Earl, Henry Pollock and Chandler Cunningham-South as back-row contenders to face the Aussies.
The injured Curry twins, Tom and Ben, will have their say when they are fit again. Second-rowers Maro Itoje, Ollie Chessum, Alex Coles, Nick Isiekwe and the injured George Martin each has the capacity to play at No 6.
Looking at that long list, the axe of Willis, joining his brother Jack in French exile, is more understandable.
A route to England?
Pepper earned his first England caps off the bench in the summer’s impressive 2-0 series win away to Argentina, coming on for his Bath club-mate Underhill each time, while Earl, Tom Curry and Pollock were with the British & Irish Lions.
Then Pepper wore the England No 7 jersey for the first time in the 40-5 win over the USA in San Francisco.
He is also a Premiership champion with Bath, having started last season’s semi-final and final. With this pedigree it would be no surprise if he gains further caps in November. But how, and where?
“Growing up, naturally, I have always been a No 7,” Pepper says. “As a seven you’re always around the ball and I think that’s my strength, whether that’s disrupting it in defence or getting on the end of stuff in attack.”
Pepper says he is naturally a No 7 (Photo: Getty)
So is that his route in for England? “I don’t know. I’ve got to be able to adapt to six and seven. It’s just about staying available and keep knocking on the door and see what happens.”
You could just see Pepper as the next cab off the rank. But the 22-year-old is reckoned by many to be the next big thing.
His Bath club coach Johann van Graan has used the phrase “McCaw-like” for Pepper’s “workhorse magic” and turnover prowess, and Van Graan would not make a comparison with New Zealand’s all-time great flanker Richie McCaw lightly.
Lewis Moody, a past master of England openside art, was enthusing about Pepper during Bath’s Premiership semi-final win over Bristol last season.
The thought occurs that the movers and shakers of the supposed rebel league R360 would pay more than a penny for this Guy? “I’ve got nothing for you on that,” Pepper says.
“I’ve not read into it and I won’t read into it. My ambition is to play for England.”
Is R360 a topic of conversation in the changing room, with Bath or England? “I’ve personally never had a conversation about it,” he says.
The art of jackalling
Pepper is on more open ground when I mention a scene I witnessed during that Premiership semi-final.
A turnover perpetrated by Pepper and Charlie Ewels under their posts, with Bath trailing 10-3, brought a roar from The Rec crowd you would normally associate with a fantastic try. Pepper smiles and says: “Bristol had been running us ragged.
“So that moment was pretty crucial in terms of the scoreboard. And me and Charlie looked at each other when we got up from that as ‘flipping hell, we’re blowing a bit here’.
“I was more trying to catch my breath rather than take it all in. And then, obviously, Finn went and kicked it, so we were straight back into it.”
And that is Finn Russell, the Bath fly-half, for you – keeping everyone on their toes. But it is also why coaches and fans love Pepper – he runs, tackles, jackals, and repeats. And repeats.
“It’s interesting you say ‘effort’,” he replies when I ask if jackalling is about skill or effort. “I had this chat today with ‘Unders’ and Emeka, doing some jackalling stuff at the end of training.
“It is effort because it tends to be you get the turnover when players aren’t doing their job: people missing cues, or you beat them in the race in there. But there’s definitely the skill element, with how it’s refereed, of showing you’re going for the ball.”
It didn’t come easy
Pepper has had his challenges along the way. Arthritis is one. At the age of six, he woke up one day racked with pain in his knees, ankles, fingers, wrists – to the point where he was unable to walk.
Medication was needed and then a “flare-up” when he was 15 required surgery to replace some ankle cartilage and he missed a year of schoolboy rugby.
Since then, Pepper has “cracked on”, he says, and he is keen not to make too much of it while recognising the story might be interesting to other youngsters to know he has overcome it.
Outside of rugby
Pepper has been balancing rugby with his studies (Photo: Getty)
And Pepper’s upsides right now are many and varied. He completed a 2:1 degree in sports science, distance-learning, at Durham University last year, including an 8000-word dissertation on CBD oil.
Now he’s on the lookout for a new sideline. “Golf could be the way forward,” he says. “I’m quite glad to have a bit of time without my head in books.”
His older brother Max, a scrum-half, has moved in 30 minutes up the road from Bath in Clifton. He has just joined Bristol Bears from Newcastle Red Bulls, the same club Guy left – though they were the Falcons then – in 2024.
The siblings would have been rivals at The Rec in the Prem this Saturday if Max didn’t have an injury. Their dad Martin was a flanker for Harlequins and England B, then taught sport at Barnard Castle school in County Durham, and Guy was born in Yorkshire.
Ready for a challenge
“I still chat to a few of the [Newcastle] lads,” Guy says. “There’s loads of rumours flying around with who’s going to coach them, they’re just taking it in their stride, and it’s really good for them.
“But I regret nothing. The move to Bath was absolutely what I needed – an environment that was going to be challenging, to kick on.”
Lee Blackett has just moved from Bath to England as attack coach, and Pepper says: “To continue working with him is class.”
And Pepper is still working with Andy Robinson, the England flanker and head coach, who oversees Bath’s contact and breakdown skills.
Robinson is famously a hard-nosed type, right?
“Yeah, and that’s great for the Bath environment,” says Pepper. “We cover off stuff at the start of the week: the breakdown from the previous week, and looking forward.
“As an out-and-out seven himself, he has knowledge of the game and the nuances he brings to your understanding and how you go about your work.
“He keeps banging on about how I need to be following Finn around the park – the way Finn creates space for people, it’s more than likely I’ll find a half chance. Robbo tells me how exactly he feels, which is what I like and how it should be from a coach.”
