Rugby World Cup: What Do Professional Rugby Players Eat?

This Is What Professional Rugby Players Eat
BAGSHOT, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 08: Chris Robshaw offloads the ball to team mate James Haskell during the England training session held at Pennyhill Park on September 8, 2015 in Bagshot, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
David Rogers via Getty Images
BAGSHOT, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 08: Chris Robshaw offloads the ball to team mate James Haskell during the England training session held at Pennyhill Park on September 8, 2015 in Bagshot, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

As the world's rugby players are set to battle it out for the World Cup, we've turned our attention away from the pitch and onto their dinner plates.

Nutrition has become a fundamental part of the England team's training. Graeme Close, England's expert nutrition consultant, says that typically players diets' will consist of high quality proteins such as chicken, eggs and fish.

"We try to make sure they get those regularly throughout the day and on top of that, they will have a lot of high-quality vegetable produce," he adds. "Carbohydrate comes in the form of sweet potato, rice quinoa - all of this is balanced to a player's needs."

Digging a little deeper into what exactly rugby players eat, we spoke to retired England player and current Wasps coach Andy Titterrell who was more than happy to detail his diet.

Titterrell, who was forced to retire from the England squad due to injury, tells HuffPost UK Lifestyle he used to eat between five and six meals every day to help compliment his rigorous training regime.

In just one week, Titterrell would find himself doing up to four structured weight training sessions, up to three conditioning sessions, and between four and five rugby sessions. This was more than the club prescribed, but he felt it was necessary to be in tip top condition.

Andy Titterrell

"Some players are quite varied in their diets but I liked to be regimented," says Titterrell. "Every meal would have roughly 200 grams of protein and between 150-300 grams of carbs with as much veg or salad as I wanted."

Nutrition was incredibly important to Titterrell because it not only helped him be in the best shape possible, but it also enabled his body to recover post-match.

For breakfast, Titterrell would eat three scrambled eggs with half an avocado, some flaxseed and two tablespoons of Udo's oil.

He would then have a couple of cups of black coffee throughout the morning to give him a caffeine boost, particularly after doing weights training.

Titterrell says that his typical snack wasn't a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts, instead he would have a small meal which he prepared in a tupperware container the night before.

This would contain either chicken breasts, steak or white fish (for protein); with mediterranean vegetables like courgettes, tomatoes, peppers; and sweet potato.

He would sometimes switch up his vegetable intake and have asparagus, green beans or even olives with his meals.

For lunch, Titterrell would then have another pre-prepared meal with more of the same. He would then have another "snack" mid-afternoon to sustain him, followed by an evening meal which was - yep, you guessed it - more of the same.

While it sounds like quite a monotonous eating regime, Titterrell believes it was incredibly important for his performance.

"I did that for the last four to five years of my career," he explains. "I also employed the help of an external nutritionist. We obviously had nutritionists through the club, but I paid for my own outside of that because I saw it as an investment in my career.

"If I could get back into training on a Monday after a Saturday or Sunday game then I knew I was in good shape, and diet played a part in that."

In addition to his strict diet, Titterrell stopped drinking alcohol when he turned 21 ("so I didn't have any alcohol-related pressure to contend with") and never ate fast food.

"Sometimes I would have a refined meal, like a cheat meal, but this would be every now and then," he says. "It wouldn't necessarily be a takeaway, sometimes it would just be things that I fancied like a couple of bowls of cereal or cheese omelettes with spaghetti hoops."

But if he did have these meals, he would ensure that it wasn't immediately after a game.

"I'd try and have it as the second meal after a game," he says. "My logic for that is because I didn't want to put junk into my body straight after the game had finished. I wanted to fuel it with quality food and nutrition to help repair my muscle damage.

"Once I'd had one healthy meal post-match, if I fancied a refined meal I'd have that next. But a lot of the time I chose not to."

Close