Stuart Lancaster denies Lions job offer

Former England coach Stuart Lancaster has denied that British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland has offered him a role in his backroom team for the 2021 Tour to South Africa.The current Leinster assistant coach admitted that he would relish the opportunity to take on the current world champions on such a stage.

Lancaster's link with the Lions was headline news last week after Gatland appeared on a Sky Sports podcast and spoke of his huge respect for the former England head coach and confirmed the pair had spoken. 

Lancaster told the media on Monday: "Just to clarify, I don't think (Gatland) mentioned me as a potential Lions coach. I think he mentioned that we had a conversation which we did.

"I can end speculation. He didn't offer me a coaching role with the Lions, so put that one to bed.

"But we did catch up. Obviously, I know him well, coached England against Wales since 2012. So we did have a catch-up, but there is a long way to go on that.

“Obviously he has taken a certain coaching team before so it would be very much up to him to have those conversations, find out who is available and who would be interested in joining up with him.

“From a personal point of view, would I be interested? Of course. As a coach you want to coach at the highest level, you want to coach the best players and I don’t think it gets any higher than coaching the Lions against the current world champions but it’s speculation for the time being.”