Courtney Lawes will leave Northampton this summer to join ProD2 side Brive after 17 seasons at Franklin’s Gardens.
Lawes said Northampton did “everything they could” for him to stay, but the offer from Brive was “transformative” to him and his family.
Lawes, 35, came through the academy and broke into the first team aged 18, going on to make 274 matches while also winning 105 Test caps for England and five for the British & Irish Lions.
“I really would have liked to end my career as a one-club man, and Saints did absolutely ev- erything they possibly could to make that happen,” Lawes sai...