If the enduring image of England’s opening Six Nations victory in Italy was a quartet of Exeter players deep in celebration, oblivious to the downward spiral that was to follow, then the lingering sound was unmistakably that of Ben Youngs crying out in pain.
Youngs’ tournament lasted only 10 minutes before suffering a knee injury which at the time looked likely to end his season, possibly even his chances of touring South Africa. The shriek of agony said as much and Eddie Jones knew only too well that the prognosis was not good, seconding Richard Wigglesworth within minutes of the final whistle.
“I got a bit of stick for the yelp,” says Youngs. “Sometimes it is the fear of what it might be, especially when it is your knee. When something like that happens you fear the worst. But I certainly feel like I dodged a bullet. The results of the scan showed that I didn’t need an operation and that ice and corrective rehab would get me right, and I knew that I would still be able to play at the back-end of the season.”
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It is too simplistic to pin England’s subsequent stumbles on one single factor – the breakdown, Billy Vunipola’s absence or fatigue, for example – but of all the excuses offered up, Youngs’ injury seems as valid as any. Danny Care had nowhere near the impact he tends to when habitually replacing Youngs after an hour and Wigglesworth, truth be told, toiled on his international comeback. Leicester’s head coach, Matt O’Connor, was not exaggerating when he remarked that Youngs had been “drastically missed”.
Youngs chose to keep his distance from the England squad during his lay-off, opting against fulfilling any commercial duties at Twickenham or offering any advice in the WhatsApp group, instead watching from the sofa with the knee in a brace. The road to recovery has been a smooth one – surgery was avoided – and he is ready to make his comeback against Northampton on Saturday with Leicester currently third and, as they always tend to do, timing their play-off push perfectly.
“I was just unbelievably unlucky,” Youngs adds. “You think of the amount of times you get tackled, or you make a tackle and you get up and you are fine and [then] something innocuous like that happens and it puts you out. It is a bit bizarre but there’s not a lot you can do about it.
“I was in a brace, sleeping in it, in it 24-7. I was on crutches, I couldn’t really do a lot so I would have been completely in the way. It was my decision to watch from home – you see a lot more on the TV. I’m not one that gets up and down and starts throwing things but I get a little bit animated. I care about that group.”
If England have keenly felt Youngs’ absence, however, Leicester have not. The Tigers have won their last five in the Premiership, having ended 2017 with a run of six straight defeats. Indeed, it was not so long ago that O’Connor’s position was under threat but Youngs pinpoints the victory at Saracens in February as the seminal moment of the season. Furthermore Leicester have a habit of improving as winter turns to spring – since the Premiership adopted a four-team format for the 2005-06 season the Tigers have been ever-present. And victory over their east Midlands rival Northampton would go a long way to securing their place this season.
“We just seem to start randomly at the beginning of the year, then we get our act together,” says Youngs. “I think the pride that we’ve always made the top four helps. Even when we’ve had seasons when it’s been really disruptive and we’ve had coaches come and go, we’ve still always had that resilience. We’ve been able to do that even when we were faced with adversity.”
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