'I could have become very resentful towards rugby'

'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.

- Ben Youngs, England's record appearance-maker, tells Donald McRae

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.

"It went on for a very long time," he says, "and it's all connected with trying to put on a brave face and play for 80 minutes while everyone forgets and, then, once the game's finished, you're checking in: 'How is he? How is she?'"

Why would Youngs look ashamed whenever he was praised? "It was definitely the guilt. People are patting you on the back and telling you how great you are. And you're thinking: 'But I don't feel that.' Ultimately the bit that kept me going was that I had to do it for them. But you become guilty because on the outside you're suddenly beating Jason Leonard's record [of 114 England Test caps] and it's all smoke and mirrors."

In his moving new book, Youngs describes how the dam finally broke when Steve Borthwick left him out of the matchday squad for England's opening match of the 2023 World Cup. Stunned by his omission, Youngs broke down with the England psychologist, David Priestley. "I was sobbing uncontrollably," he says. "It felt like I was never going to stop."

Youngs has reconciled his inner conflict: "I'm grateful David was there because if I had not spoken to him then I could have become very resentful towards rugby and people within the game. But it gave me a bit of clarity and peace that, actually, what I did was all right."