DAN AND DUSTED
Brilliant Care brings down curtain on England career
DANNY CARE declared his international career over shortly after raising his bat for his England century.
The Harlequins scrumhalf has called time on his Test days with 101 caps on the board and one Six Nations Grand Slam (celebrating in 2016 with team-mate Mike Brown top), three Six Nations titles and a World Cup bronze medal (second, left). Care, 37, decided the time is right following discussions with his wife Jodie after being part of England’s rejuvenation under head coach Steve Borthwick in the last month.
Care won his 100th cap against Ireland, off the bench in the 23-22 win at Twickenham and won his last in the heartbreaking 33-31 defeat by France in Lyon 10 days ago.
After that game Care, who has played 369 times for Quins, admitted he was in two minds about his international future but the die has finally been cast, bringing down the curtain on a roller-coaster ride.
Care said: “Thank you to every coach who has picked me, dropped me, picked me again, loved me or hated me. Hopefully I have shown you should never give up.”
It has not been an easy road for the veteran who was first capped in 2008 against New Zealand, in Auckland, coming off the bench for current England attack coach Richard Wigglesworth.
He started out at Leeds, played England age-group rugby and won a Commonwealth Games silver medal in Sevens in 2006 – the year he joined Harlequins.
After a decent run in the national side, vying with
Ben Youngs from 2010, for the starting scrum-half jersey he was axed by Eddie Jones in 2018 and looked like he had stalled on 84 caps. But Care bounced back to join Youngs, Jason Leonard, Owen Farrell, Courtney Lawes and Dan Cole as England’s male centurions (celebrating, bottom left).
In between, Care was thrown out of an England squad by then-boss Stuart Lancaster, after a late-night incident in Leeds in 2012.
Lancaster, at the time, warned Care he was in danger of throwing his international career down the drain. There were other incidents, including arrests for drink-driving and being drunk and disorderly but Care, a father of three (with son Rocco, top left), fought back admirably.
Jones brought him back for the 2022 tour to Australia before taking him off after half-an-hour of the final Test win in Sydney.
But Borthwick restored him to the fold and Care forced his way into the squad for France, where he was involved in six out of seven games. In the recent Six Nations, he started against Scotland and was a replacement, behind Alex Mitchell for the other four games.