IT’S BEEN AN ELL OF A FIGHT
Genge on his ‘imposter’ feelings
ELLIS GENGE admits he can feel out of place in the England set-up despite being part of the furniture since 2016.
The Bristol prop has captained the side, has been part of the leadership group and has amassed 58 caps in one of the toughest positions on the field.
Genge, currently in camp in Girona, was seen as a rough diamond when he was first promoted to the England squad and revealed he still suffers from imposter syndrome.
The 28-year-old (right) is on the board of a new company – also including captain Jamie George, Anthony Watson, Maro Itoje and Joe Marler – which will negotiate commercial rights for English players.
But in the Netflix documentary, Six Nations: Full Contact, which was released yesterday, Genge reveals he has not always felt he deserved to be there.
“I’ve been (playing for England) for a while now,” he said. “But I always feel like I need to prove myself. I’ve struggled with it my whole life.
“I always felt like an outsider. I tried to keep it suppressed for a long time, but when you lose a game, that’s when I’ve struggled. You really do start to question if you are in the right place.”
Genge was brought up in Bristol’s Knowle West and was on the wrong side of the law as a youngster admitting, in the documentary, he was arrested five times. He went to a comprehensive school before becoming a boarder at the rugby nursery Hartpury College and graduating to Bristol’s first team before moving to Leicester.
And Genge (above, on England duty with Freddie Steward and Owen Farrell) is open about how rugby changed his life.
He added: “There were a few paths I could have gone down. I could have followed my dad and been a plumber. Or I could have followed all the other kids and sold drugs.
“Rugby has definitely stopped me from doing stuff I inevitably would have been involved in.
“When I chat to people in rugby about growing up and they can’t get their head around it.
“Any rules that I was given, I wanted to break. For some reason, I just wanted to rebel against everything. I didn’t really open myself up to people. If someone said sit down, I was standing up and I was always getting into fights.
“I went down the wrong path numerous times. I used to do some things that I probably won’t ever speak about – you can use your imagination.
“I probably looked up to the wrong people. I really chased that, for whatever reason.
“When you are young and naive you chase that bad-boy lifestyle.”