Gavin Mairs is the award-winning Chief Rugby Correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, where he has worked since 2009. He has covered rugby union for over 20 years, including previously as rugby correspondent for the Belfast Telegraph and Yorkshire Post, and has reported from every World Cup and Five/Six Nations Championship since 1999 and every British and Irish Lions tour since 2001.
Gavin has co-authored four books, most recently the best-selling autobiography of Andy Farrell, former Wigan and Great Britain rugby league star and now Ireland rugby union and British and Irish Lions head coach, entitled ‘The Only Way I Know’, published by Penguin Sandycove, in October 2025. It has been shortlisted for the Sports Book of the Year at the 2025 Irish Book Awards.
Other books include Maggie Alphonsi’s autobiography called ‘Winning the Fight’, which was published by Polaris in August 2023 and was shortlisted for the Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year.
He also collaborated with Martin Bayfield, the former England and Lions forward and broadcaster and actor, on his autobiography called ‘A Very Tall Story’, published by Simon & Schuster in September 2022; and the autobiography of Rory Best, the former Ireland and British and Irish Lions captain, ‘Rory Best: My Autobiography’, published by Hodder & Stoughton in March 2020.
Gavin is a former winner of Sports Journalist of the Year award at the Northern Ireland Press and Broadcast awards and Sportswriter of the Year at the Yorkshire Press Awards.
He has been shortlisted eight times for Rugby Journalist of the Year at the Sports Journalists Association Awards and awarded silver in 2023.
X: @gavinmairs