Exclusive interview: England Netball head coach Jess Thirlby on replacing Tracey Neville and why chocolate will be key to a happy household

Aware of the risks involved with telling a five-year-old not to blurt out sensitive information, Jess Thirlby knew to be wary of revealing her new dream job to her son George.

On several occasions in the past George had informed his mother of a Christmas or birthday present she would be receiving from her husband ahead of time, so Thirlby thought it prudent to wait until the eve of the official announcement that she was to be named England’s new netball head coach.

“What would you like mummy’s job to be,” Thirlby’s husband Rob asked the youngster. “Chocolate maker,” he replied.

“It was my biggest failure of the last few years to let my son down,” jokes Thirlby. “Although on the way to our holiday the following week he said he was OK with me being England netball coach and chocolate maker. So now I have to return from every camp or series with some chocolate.

“I don’t know if the job is really going to float his boat, but it definitely does mine.”

It is just over three weeks since Thirlby’s appointment that we meet at a local school in Bristol for her first major interview since becoming the most important person in English netball.

Having spent almost her entire career either playing for or coaching Bath, this part of the country is very much Thirlby’s stomping ground and, while offering the caveat that her appointment “may not be that big a news story”, it would certainly have set tongues wagging had George let it slip.

In addition to Thirlby’s numerous England playing caps, her husband Rob was an England Sevens regular during a rugby union career that saw him play for Saracens, Bath and Gloucester.

In fact, like her predecessor as England head coach Tracey Neville - whose brothers Gary and Phil played football for England - Thirlby also has a footballing connection. “Although not quite as famous as the previous one!” she insists.

While that may be true nationally, Thirlby’s father Chris Garland remains a footballing legend in the south-west of England after more than a decade spent playing for Bristol City, as well as spells at Chelsea and Leicester City.

This abundance of sporting pedigree will be tested to its fullest now Thirlby, a mother of two young children and stepmother to another, has been chosen to head up the national side during English netball’s biggest boom time.

She takes the reins after England last month narrowly missed out on a spot in a first World Cup final, which had been the goal asked of Neville when taking the job four years ago.

It was a missed opportunity for arguably the strongest team in the tournament, although Thirlby is understandably not about to stick the boot into her predecessor.

“I guess objectively people will consider it to be a failure,” she says. “For me, I think the Commonwealth gold and World Cup bronze combined was a fantastic achievement and was a success.

“We almost over-achieved prior to the timeline we’d set ourselves in the last cycle. As soon as you win, you are just expected to keep winning and it doesn’t always work like that.”

When Thirlby speaks there is a surety to her statements; a sense of confidence built up through years of convincing herself she was “equally, if not more, equipped” than any other candidate for this role. Above all there is a thoughtfulness to the words of someone who says she places personal relationships above everything else: “That’s how you make the magic happen.”

Thirlby was just 26 when she took the bold decision to end her playing career in the pursuit of becoming an elite coach. It was not due to any inadequacies in her playing ability as she had been Team Bath’s first full-time player and represented England at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. With her analytical eye, she was able to make the brave call that she had “reached the pinnacle” of her playing powers.

“I’ve always dreaded being that person who kept doing something to the point where I became quite mediocre at it,” she says.

There is a sense everything has been building to this ever since. She has coached England Under-21 at two World Youth Cups, served as assistant and technical coach to the senior side before Neville’s reign, and had spent 11 years in charge of Team Bath before stepping down at the start of this year to consider her next career move.

The timing of Neville’s departure was a perfect coincidence - “everyone thinks there’s a conspiracy like I knew what was going to happen but I definitely didn’t” - and filling those shoes is her “absolute dream role”.

Now comes the hard part. With an average squad age of 29 at the recent World Cup, there has been much talk about a transition period for England, although the overwhelming majority of that squad have just signed central contracts for the coming year.

Thirlby is “really hopeful” a number of those players will continue for some time, but England teams will undoubtedly have an inexperienced look about them in the coming months as many of the World Cup squad take a break. It will require a careful balancing act of development - “I don’t want us to hide behind that word” - and looking to sustain success.

“I was speaking to a player the other day and it hit me hard because the player was like ‘I really need England to get in that World Cup final,’” she says. “That language is really quite inspiring to me because of the relentlessness that we’re not done yet.

“But I would like my legacy to be far-reaching and broader. Yes, I want it to be driven by the outcome of making a World Cup final, but on the way there I want people to have felt proud about the journey and created home-grown staff, coaches and players in a way that sustains success.”

As for her children, she says: “I just hope I can be a role model for them that you can pursue things at the highest level and still be a brilliant mum.” Chocolate is the answer.