Joe: I’m desperate for us to kick on
NEW DEAL AND NEW CHALLENGE FOR BLACK & GOLD STALWART LAUNCHBURY
GETTING Wasps back to ‘where we used to be’ was the key motivation behind Joe Launchbury bucking the trend of star players leaving the club to instead sign a new deal.
Elliot Daly, Nathan Hughes and Joe Simpson were among the big names to leave the Ricoh Arena outfit this calendar year with each stating the need for a new challenge behind their decisions for joining rival Gallagher Premiership clubs.
But for long-serving Launchbury, now into his tenth season at his only professional club, the drive of returning Wasps to a position where they are competing for honours and his belief in a burgeoning crop of young players were suffice for him to put pen to paper on a new deal.
“I fully respect their decisions and everyone has completely different reasons,” said the 28-year-old. “If I felt there was no challenge here for me and it was time for me to move on, then as much as I love the club, I would 100 per cent look to seek another challenge.
“I certainly feel there’s so much for me to get my teeth into at a club I have a huge amount of respect and love for really. I’d love to be here for the next number of years and really try and cement ourselves back up where we all feel we deserve to be. We had a good couple of years, maybe, by our own standards its flattened a little bit over the last 18 months and I am desperate for us to kick on.
“We’ve got a fantastic support base here, we’ve got a fantastic home ground, we’ve got a lot going for us. I feel the challenge is certainly appropriate here at the moment for me.”
Launchbury was three months shy of his 20th birthday when he made the first of his 142 appearances for the club, scoring a try coming off the bench in the Anglo-Welsh Cup 38-13 loss to Harlequins – a match staged in Abu Dhabi. Having previously only played senior rugby for Worthing it was a display of faith in the teenager’s talents, laying the foundations for a bond that has remained strong through the club’s difficult times in their final years in London through the rollercoaster five years since moving to Coventry. “I came here at a young age and I felt a huge sense of debt to them for a number of years, from the way they took me from a semi-professional side into coming here, off the back of a trial basis.
“I worked pretty hard in the first year, got given an opportunity in well-documented circumstances, and they’ve been a huge part of my career. Now with a family up here in the Midlands, we love living in the Midlands, we love living where we live and we feel really settled.
“I am not just here for those reasons, I am here for rugby reasons as well. I genuinely believe in the project here. I’ve got a lot of love for the club, while the last 18 months haven’t gone how we all would’ve hoped, I genuinely believe that the people inside this building, both the playing staff and the coaching staff. It’s not going to be easy, we’re playing in some really competitive competitions, but I truly believe we’ve got the right personnel here to kick on in the next couple of years.”
Less than two years after making his top level debut, Launchbury arrived in the place of another Wasps lock of notoriety, Tom Palmer, as a 50th minute substitute in England’s 54-12 demolition of Fiji at Twickenham in November 2012.
He earned his most recent and 62nd international cap during a 49-minute showing against USA in the 2019 Rugby World Cup - his only appearance during England’s sixgame campaign.
“I would’ve loved to have played more,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said anything different. In terms of an experience, in terms of an opportunity, they don’t come around very often. I was desperate to play a part of it. I did everything I could to get myself into that squad, first and foremost. It was gutting with the way it ended, on the whole it was a fantastic experience in a fantastic country and I certainly learned a lot.”
While away on World Cup duty, his club announced plans to move its training ground base to a permanent location in Henley-in-Arden, subject to planning permission being granted.
Wasps’ training ground facilities were heavily rumoured to be one of the reasons behind a key player exodus at the end of the 2018/19 season and it had been reported that a failure to secure a state-ofthe-art training complex had prompted Daly to trigger a release clause and join Saracens.
With the current campaign set to be Wasps’ last at Broadstreet RFC, their home since the summer of 2016, Launchbury believes the proposed training ground base in south Warwickshire will prove to be hugely important on many levels.
“It’s a massive positive for us both in terms of contract negotiations for retention and hopefully to attract some players here as well,” explained the lock, who is ruled out of Wasps’ trip to Exeter Chiefs with a calf injury suffered against Agen last weekend.
“It’s something we’ve probably never really had. We’re massively indebted to people like Broadstreet here and previously in London with
I’d love to be here for the next number of years and really try and cement ourselves back up where we all feel we deserve to be.
Joe Launchbury
Wasps FC, the amateur side. We’ve been extremely lucky to use their facilities. Sometimes, to have somewhere to call home and to really put your stamp on it and have facilities which are aligned with our vision and goal for the club are hugely important.”
Similarly to Launchbury’s early seasons at Wasps, an influx of young players have been given their chance by director of rugby Dai Young with eight Academy players earning senior deals while young French lock Thibaud Flament continues to impress for the first team despite still being on the Academy’s books.
It’s a group of players their leader has faith in to help keep the club moving forward – even beyond his final match in Black and Gold.
“It’s our job now, and my job and a number of the other guys who have been here for a number of years to keep this squad together and keep pushing us forward. I’ve got huge belief in a lot of the young guys here. The really exciting part of our playing squad at the moment is the young guys who have broken in, on the fringes of breaking in and some guys who are a bit younger than that, maybe break in in the next two or three years.
“They’re the heartbeat of the club and hopefully it will be them in ten years who are sitting here in front of you saying they’ve been here for 10 years and been a huge part of it because it means a bit more to you when you’ve come through the system like I have and been here for a number of years, if you can keep that core group of players together like we have here it definitely bodes well for the future of the club.”
He added: “I can’t quite believe when I say it’s my tenth season here now, it’s gone in a flash in a good way. It’s been a huge part of my life, a huge part in my family’s life and it’s great to sign up for a bit longer.”