(Reuters) - England's rugby team got an extra dose of motivation ahead of Saturday's Six Nations encounter with Wales when they received a pap talk by former soccer captain John Terry.
The Chelsea great, who is currently an assistant manager at Championship (second-tier) side Aston Villa after retiring last October, visited the rugby team at their Bagshot training base on Tuesday where he delivered a talk about leadership.
"The players were really engaged by talking to him. He gave some great messages," forwards coach Borthwick told BBC Sport.
"He spoke about the traits in the highly successful teams he has been a part of, which are consistent with the type of thing we talk about: the competitiveness, the drive in training, players taking responsibility.
"We spoke about the leadership density, and he spoke about the strength of that within the teams he has been part of. All the successful teams have had a great group of leaders. That's something we're well aware of and continue to try and develop."
Terry, a no-nonsense defender who won 78 England caps, left Chelsea in 2017 after 19 seasons at the west London club where he won 17 trophies, including five Premier League titles, five FA Cup triumphs and three League Cup trophies.
England and Wales are the only two teams to have won their opening two games and victory for Eddie Jones's team, who next face Italy and Scotland at Twickenham, would make them odds-on favourite for a grand slam.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)