Nigel John Heslop (born 4 December 1963) is an English former

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

and professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s. He played representative level rugby union (RU) for

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, and at club level for Orrell R.U.F.C. (two spells), and

Liverpool St Helens F.C. Liverpool St Helens Football Club is an England, English rugby union team formed from the merger of Liverpool Football Club and St Helens RUFC. The institution is not to be confused with either Liverpool F.C. (playing association football) or St ...

as a

Wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

, and club level rugby league (RL) for

Oldham Oldham is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers River Irk, Irk and River Medlock, Medlock, southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative cent ...

, at the time of his move to Oldham, he was employed by

Merseyside Police Merseyside Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Merseyside in North West England. The service area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million. As of September 2017 the service has 3,484 police o ...

Background

Nigel Heslop was born in West

Hartlepool Hartlepool ( ) is a seaside resort, seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough Borough of Hartlepool, named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimat ...

, England.

International career

Nigel Heslop represented

on ten occasions between 1990-1992, playing in two of the matches of the 1991 Rugby World Cup, including a very physical encounter with France. He was a member of England's 1991 5 Nations Grand Slam winning side, scoring a try against the Scots at

Twickenham Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...

in the Calcutta Cup match of that year. He was surprisingly dropped for the first two matches of the World Cup, in favour of Chris Oti: marked his return with a try in the third and final group-stage match against the USA: but emerged from the quarter-final against France considerably battered and bruised. Although he completed the match he was not judged fit to start in either the semi-final or final, and with Oti also injured, Heslop's place on the wing was taken by the squad's utility-back replacement, Simon Halliday - who more usually played centre. Heslop took a place on the bench for both matches but was not called on to play. England kept the World Cup Final back line in place throughout the 1992 season, keeping Heslop on the bench: his final international appearance was in the last match of that season, coming on as a replacement for Carling in the final few minutes. Thus, the match, and his career, finished with the brief and incongruous situation of Heslop (a specialist winger) playing in the centre, while Halliday (a specialist centre) played on the wing in Heslop's usual position. Heslop subsequently switched codes to play

for

, bringing an end to his chances of international selection for the Rugby Union team. He returned to Rugby Union - and his old club, Orrell RFC - in 1995, but did not challenge for international selection again.

References

External links

* * (archived by web.archive.org
Statistics at orl-heritagetrust.org.uk
* (archived by archive.is
Statistics at statbunker.com
1963 births Living people English rugby union players English rugby league players England international rugby union players Lancashire County RFU players Liverpool St Helens F.C. players Oldham R.L.F.C. players Orrell R.U.F.C. players Rugby league players from County Durham Rugby union players from Hartlepool 1991 Rugby World Cup players Rugby union wings 20th-century English sportsmen {{England-rugbyunion-bio-1960s-stub