‘I found it hard, I really did,” Ben Youngs says as he explains why it was once so difficult to embrace his achievement of playing more times for England than any other men’s rugby player. Youngs won 127 caps and featured in four World Cups, but he used to look down at the ground whenever his longevity was mentioned.
Youngs retired from international rugby at the end of 2023, and played his last game for Leicester in the Premiership final in June, and so he can now give public voice to the trauma he carried for so long. While his sister-in-law Tiffany suffered for years with blood cancer, and his brother-in-law Jake endured motor neurone disease, Youngs played for England. He often felt as if he was putting himself ahead of everyone else while his brother and sister lost their partners to terminal illness.
