ROYAL Wootton Bassett have taken a page from the Premiership playbook as the first team from outside the top flight to use a unique ladder for lineout practice.

Eddie Jones’ England team, as well as a host of Premiership outfits, use a Henchman tripod ladder for working on lineout throwing - and now Bassett are among them.

Wiltshire-based safety ladder specialist Henchman donated the ladder to the club during the recent Rugby World Cup, the formal presentation made by the company’s general manager, Michael Byers, before Bassett’s recent victory over Buckingham.

The club, which was recently named the groundroots rugby level six club of the month by the RFU, is going from strength to strength. They have over 900 members and a full range of teams, including thriving youth boys and girls sides.

Director of rugby Alan Low said: “We have definitely seen an improvement in lineout performance since Henchman kindly donated the tripod ladder to our club.

“Hookers across all teams in the club are getting a lot of use out of it and in this recent spell of bad weather players have been able to use it indoors to practice on their own.”

Henchman sent the England Rugby squad a ladder to its Pennyhill Park training ground after managing director Tom Kitching saw footage of forwards coach Steve Borthwick wobbling on a traditional stepladder during lineout practice before the 2019 Six Nations.

A tripod ladder was used by England in Japan during the Rugby World Cup and a Henchman is now a key part of training in top-level rugby.

The ladder was used for a BBC Radio Wilshire photocall at Bassett earlier this year as part of its Rugby World Cup coverage.

Byers said: “I had no idea what to expect, so when we turned up to this amazing facility, full of enthusiastic club members and players we were very impressed.

“As a local company we are keen to support the community we serve and when a club official asked me how much it might cost to buy the ladder we were more than happy to say, ‘keep it – with our compliments’.”