John Dalziel will tap into Gregor Townsend’s Lions knowledge ahead of tour

Scotland forwards coach John Dalziel will lean heavily on Gregor Townsend’s experience as he prepares to go into “a brand new world” after earning a surprise call to join Andy Farrell’s British and Irish Lions backroom team.

Townsend was involved with the Lions as a player in 1997 and then as a coach in 2021 and the Scotland head coach was one of several people Farrell spoke to about Dalziel before including him on Wednesday as part of his coaching staff for this summer’s tour of Australia.

“Gregor’s been brilliant,” 48-year-old Dalziel told the Scottish Rugby podcast.

“Obviously, the initial conversation (with Farrell), he didn’t know a lot about what was going to happen but he just said he’s very keen because he asked a lot about you.

“And then obviously, after I got the news, Gregor was the first person I called and we went into a bit more depth. He’s been brilliant just around the advice he can give and I’m going to lean on him pretty heavily over the next few months as well, because you’re going into a brand new world there.

“As an ex-player and somebody that’s had the chance to coach there, Gregor knows the Lions very well, so he’ll be somebody I’ll be relying on heavily over the next period.”

Dalziel, who has been a Scotland coach since 2020, said the Lions was never on his radar until he first heard from Farrell late last month.

“It feels a little bit surreal at the moment,” said the former Border Reivers forward.

“I’ve come off the back of a really busy Six Nations campaign so I’m just trying to process it really.

“In the end, it happened pretty quickly. It was something that was completely not on my radar at all. You’re fully immersed in the Six Nations, already intense enough.

“I think Andy had a chat with Gregor, and I had a brief chat with him (Farrell) on the second fallow week ahead of the Wales game.

“He said there’s a process of talking to all the probable coaches from the home nations and that I might get a phone call. And two days later, I had a phone call. It was a delight to hear the words coming from his mouth.

“When you’re involved in a job with the national team, you always trust and back the work that you do, but something like that (the Lions) always seems so far away. It was never really on my radar to even give it another thought.

“I pinch myself every day being the Scotland forwards coach as it is, so that (being a Lions coach) is a huge honour and something that will probably sink in a bit more in the coming days and weeks.”