Peter Charles Richards (born 10 March 1978) is a former English rugby union player. A versatile player, he has played in three positions: scrum half (his preferred role), fly-half and centre. Richards retired in the summer of 2010 because of a back injury. As of May 2015, Richards became head coach at London Scottish. Early life Born 10 March 1978 in Portsmouth, Richards began playing mini rugby at Farnham Rugby Club, before he went to the Royal Hospital School, near Ipswich. Early career Richards moved to Lord Wandsworth College, Hampshire for sixth form and played alongside Jonny Wilkinson reaching the Daily Mail Semi-final in 1996. He featured in both the England U16 and U18 Group Schools teams before joining London Irish in 1996. Club career Richards quickly made his first team debut for London Irish against Leicester Tigers before joining Harlequins for the 1999–2000 season. He left two years later and spent a year in Italy playing for Benetton Treviso, then returned to join Bristol Shoguns. He moved again, to Wasps at the start of the 2003–04 season, when the Shoguns were relegated from the Zurich Premiership. He was a replacement when Wasps won both the 2003–04 Premiership Final and the 2004 Heineken Cup Final. In summer 2005, Richards moved to Gloucester Rugby to replace Andy Gomarsall. He re-signed with London Irish at the start of the 2007–08 season. International career Richards has represented England at U19, U21 and A level. He was part of the England "Tour of Hell" in 1998 to Australia and New Zealand when he played against the New Zealand Māori. He angered head coach Clive Woodward by going to nightclubs in Sydney and Auckland, which had a detrimental result on his performance during training sessions. He came home before the final leg to South Africa, and Woodward never called him up to the squad again while he was coach. In 2004 he was part of the winning England team at the Hong Kong Sevens. This decision paid off when he was named in Andy Robinson's 2005 Autumn test squad, though he did not feature in any of the games. Richards was included in England's 2006 Tour of Australia and won his first Test cap against the Wallabies in a game which Australia beat England 34–3. Richards won his second cap in the second game of the tour in which the Wallabies triumphed again in a