Jeremy Guscott: Everything you need to know about England’s ‘Prince of Centres’

Jeremy Guscott is, alongside Richard Hill, Jonny Wilkinson, Jason Robinson and Martin Johnson, one of England greatest five players of all time, possessing gas to burn, a brilliant and intuitive rugby mind and the priceless ability to change a Test match in the blink of an eye.

Lauded by anyone who played with him or coached him, he has a 78 per cent win rate with England and a remarkable 66 per cent with the British and Irish Lions over three tours.

31 tries and three drop-goals (one of them rather famous!) speaks volumes about his attacking prowess, a man who could burn any defender on the outside but also possessed the awareness and handling ability to make killer passes either side to unlock chances for others.

Playing all of his club rugby at Bath RFC in a time of absolute dominance for the West Country team, Guscott’s early life as a bricklayer paved the way for the underrated physicality of the outside centre.

In a team featuring Nigel Redman, Roger Spurrell, John Hall and Andy Robinson, missed tackles simply were not tolerated and Guscott’s intelligent defence is an often overlooked part of his rounded game.

Standing 6’1” and weighing some 100kgs at the end of his career, his power isn’t often talked about, yet it was the work of both Guscott and Scott Gibbs in the midfield that closed down both the Wallabies and the Springboks in 1989 and 1997 respectively.

‘Guscott and Gibbs’, it rolls off the tongue as easily as peaches and cream or Hobbs and Hutton as a seminal partnership, inarguably the most effective Lions centre pairing in history. It’s no coincidence that coaches like Sir Ian McGeechan and Warren Gatland and pundits like Stephen Jones all picked Guscott for their dream Lions over Brian O’Driscoll.

In a Lions shirt he was superman, delivering the crucial series winning plays in two tours and also absolutely instrumental in the famous Lions win in Wellington in 1993, and will go down in history as unquestionably the greatest Lions outside centre of all time.

Background

Born in Bath in 1965, he was one of the two sons of hospital porter Henry Guscott and his wife Sue and was educated at the local Ralph Allen School. Guscott rose up the Bath ranks like a meteor, and in the process laying down his brickie’s trowel via a job as a bus driver to take up a PR role working for British Gas before the game turned pro.

During 1987, Guscott travelled to Australia and played for Wollongong Waratahs RFC in the Illawarra District Rugby Union competition to further his rugby education. Later in his career he also secured work as a fashion model, allegedly much to the mirth of England team mate Wade Dooley who christened him ‘Precious Jerry’ from that moment on.

Club career

A one club man and his home club at that, Guscott won six Premiership titles and one Heineken Cup with Jerry contributing a whopping 143 tries in 268 matches from his debut against Sale in 1984 to his final outing against Rotherham 16 years later. He is arguably the finest player Bath have ever produced – a superstar in a galaxy of shining light, and someone revered down at the Rec.

It’s a useful nuance that Bath traditionally never used the 13 shirt due to superstition, numbering 1-12, 14-16. As a result, Guscott wore 14 for Bath and always 12 for both England and the British and Irish Lions in respect to the Bath tradition, despite always playing as an outside centre.

Test career

Marking his England debut with a hat-trick of tries in the 58-3 win over Romania in Bucharest in May 1989, with only one Test under his belt, Guscott received a call-up for the in-progress British and Irish Lions tour of Australia as a replacement. He made a series-winning contribution in the second and third Tests, with his grubber and chase for a try winning the crucial second clash in Melbourne.

Selected on his second Lions tour in 1993 after representing England at the 1991 World Cup – where they lost in the final 12-6 to the Wallabies. Guscott would make his second World Cup in 1995 after his 1994 season was decimated by injury, and as England were bulldozed out of the tournament by Jonah Lomu, rather remarkably Guscott soon found himself out of sorts with the Red Rose, fuelled partly by Phil de Glanville taking the England captaincy in 1996 and Jack Rowell wanting to play a defensive midfield with Will Carling as De Glanville’s partner.

Whilst he was surplus to England’s needs for a time, McGeechan’s Lions could not countenance Guscott’s absence and reformed his partnership with Gibbs. His finest moment was unquestionably the drop-goal that he sent over during the decisive second Test win in Durban over the Springboks, sealing the series for the Lions after Neil Jenkins’ metronomic kicking kept them in contention.

Guscott made his last appearance for England against Tonga during the 1999 World Cup, scoring an interception try and receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

Personal life

Since retirement, Guscott has enjoyed life as a rugby pundit with the BBC and several national publications, seeing the game through his unique lens of creativity and emotion.

Guscott is married to Saz, who is a psychologist. He has three daughters, Imogen, Holly and Saskia, from his previous marriage.

Net worth

Nobody knows for sure but with a string of media appearances after his successful career, Guscott’s net worth is said to be somewhere between £5 and £10 million.

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