Courtney Lawes to call time on England career
Test centurion Courtney Lawes will retire from England duty following the Rugby World Cup.
The 34-year-old’s bid to finish his international career on a high was cruelly ended by Saturday’s heartbreaking 16-15 semi-final loss to South Africa in Paris.
Vice-captain Lawes is a veteran of four World Cups, two British and Irish Lions tours and one of only five Englishmen to be capped 100 times.
Steve Borthwick’s side will return home from France following Friday evening’s bronze-medal match against pool-stage opponents Argentina.
Lawes, who has made 105 international appearances across 15 years, said: “I haven’t told Steve yet! But I will let him know.
“I’ve said to the boys, anyone that’s asked. I think it’s time. I’ve done four World Cups, so I’m pretty happy with that.
“It’s a bit of an end of an era, but it’s been a real honour for me to represent England for so long. It flies by.
“I’m proud of the journey I’ve been on. It’s not always been the ups. Plenty of downs in there, but I’ve pushed through.
“I’m not an emotional person really, but it’s just been a huge honour for me.
“To be able to finish with this group, it’s something I’ll treasure forever.”
England travelled to the World Cup in poor form and with many pundits dismissive of their prospects.
But they came agonisingly close to reaching a second successive final after leading the reigning champions for all but five minutes of an enthralling last-four encounter which was settled by Handre Pollard’s late penalty.
“It’s one of those where we thought we had it, but let it slip away at the same time,” said Lawes.
“But we’ve proved a lot of people wrong. You give it all you’ve got. It’s sport, isn’t it?
“That’s what it means at the highest level. You get a couple of things wrong and get punished.
“But a lot of people thought we’d have struggled, and in the end we were unlucky to lose.”
Lawes made his England debut against Australia in 2009 when head coach Borthwick was team captain.
The flanker was a beaten finalist against the Springboks in 2019 and also played in the 2011 and 2015 tournaments, in addition to representing the Lions in 2017 and 2021.
He believes England have a bright future under Borthwick and is determined to sign off by helping the team finish third.
“We showed to everyone what it means to play for this team,” said Lawes. “Play for your country and the boys alongside you.
“I think people can see now what a good coach he is – and where this team can really go.
“We want to finish on a high. It’s important for us to finish properly and send us all off on a good win.”
Father-of-four Lawes joined World Cup-winning prop Jason Leonard and international team-mates Ben Youngs, Owen Farrell and Dan Cole on a select list of England centurions in August by captaining his country in a shock warm-up defeat to Fiji at Twickenham.
He waved to fans at Stade de France following England’s dramatic elimination and intends to spend more time with his children while continuing to playing for Northampton.
“The kids are at that age where they need their dad around,” he said.
“It will be good to be with them more, to provide some well-needed structure to the mob.
“As hard as it is being away from your family, you almost have another family.
“You really feel like that, especially when you’re away in camps like World Cup camps. It’s five months, staying with your brothers.
“I’ll definitely miss the boys, the banter and all the stuff we get up to when we’re not training. I’ll miss the hard work as well.
“And I’ll definitely miss pulling the jersey on and giving it everything.”
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Excellent game management in the last 15 or so minutes to close it out. Aussie got a bit panicky.
Go to commentsWhile all this is going on… I’ve been thinking more about the NFL draft system and how to make the commercial elements of the game more sustainable for SA teams who precariously live on the fringe of these developments. SA teams play in Europe now, and are welcome, because there’s a novelty to it. SA certainly doesn’t bring the bucks (like a Japan would to SR) but they bring eyes to it. But if they don’t perform (because they don’t have the money like the big clubs) - it’s easy come easy go… I think there is an element of strategic drafting going on in SA. Where the best players (assets) are sort of distributed amongst the major teams. It’s why we’re seeing Moodie at the Bulls for example and not at his homegrown Western Province. 20-30 years ago, it was all about playing for your province of birth. That has clearly changed in the modern era. Maybe Moodie couldn’t stay in the cape because at the time the Stormers were broke? Or had too many good players to fit him in? Kistchoff’s sabbatical to Ireland and back had financial benefits. Now they can afford him again (I would guess). What I am getting at is - I think SA Rugby needs to have a very strong strategy around how teams equitably share good youth players out of the youth structures. That is SA’s strong point - a good supply of good players out of our schools and varsities. It doesn’t need to be the spectacle we see out of the states, but a system where SA teams and SA rugby decide on where to draft youth, how to fund this and how to make it that it were possible for a team like the Cheetahs (for example) to end up with a team of young stars and win! This is the investment and thinking that needs to be happening at grassroots to sustain the monster meanwhile being created at the top.
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