Ben Youngs will retire after England’s Rugby World Cup third-place play-off this Friday as his country’s most-capped player.
Scrum-half Youngs, 34, will start his first game in the tournament and win his 127th cap as he calls time on a nearly 14-year international career that – like Courtney Lawes who announced his retirement on Tuesday – began with now coach Steve Borthwick captaining the side.
Just like Lawes, Youngs has also played in four World Cups, won as many Six Nations titles and been an integral part of the team through the 2010s and into the latest decade. Staying largely injury-free, he has managed to beat not just Lawes’ 105 caps but Jason Leonard’s previously held men’s test appearance record of 114.
Youngs made his debut in March 2010 in a draw with Scotland and Murrayfield, and him and Leicester teammate Dan Cole would be the only surviving players when England next drew with their northern neighbours nine years later.
In between that period, Youngs had a number of highlights. His first substantial contribution came when England beat Australia in 2010 for the first time in seven years as he scored a solo try to tie the series Down Under, and was the only try scorer a year later as they beat Argentina to get their 2011 World Cup campaign off to a winning start.
He remained a key part of Stuart Lancaster’s England team, most notably scoring a brace and being named man of the match as they beat France 55-35 in 2015 alongside a string of consistent performances, and continued into the Eddie Jones era as he toured Australia again as part of a 3-0 series win the following year.
In that period he also went to Australia with the Lions, coming off the bench in the first test match of that tour and starting in the second test, as they won their first series in the 21st century. He turned down a chance to go on a second tour four years later, staying at home for personal reasons.
After scoring again in a World Cup pool stage game against the Pumas in 2019, he went on to start all-but one game in that competition as England reached the final, and has since added six more tries to his international tally to take his career total to 20.
He broke Leonard’s 114-cap record in the 2022 Six Nations, and though he wasn’t selected to tour Australia for a third time with his country later that year he has remained in and around the squad ever since and is rewarded with one final outing and a chance to score against Argentina in a World Cup match one last time.
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