TON-UP DAN HAILED FOR ALL HE’S WORTH
RICHARD WIGGLESWORTH has saluted Danny Care’s longevity with the Harlequins veteran set to join the centurions club on Saturday.
Scrum-half Care (left) is in line to make his 100th England appearance against Ireland at Twickenham – 16 years after first being in a match squad with Wigglesworth.
England attack coach Wigglesworth started the Auckland Test against New Zealand in 2008, with Care making his debut off the bench. Wigglesworth, now 40, won the last of his 33 caps against Australia in 2018 and would have had many more but for Care and Ben Youngs, the latter winning 127 before retiring.
But Wigglesworth praised Care’s staying power, even if through gritted teeth.
Wigglesworth joked: “I’m going to get the ultimate revenge on Danny for playing in front of me all those years.
I’m going to campaign he sticks on 99! So, I forever have that over him.
“Everyone’s story is different. You tend to remember the tough times and Danny has definitely had some of those and still got to 100 caps.
“He’s shown enough week in, week out to show he can still play Test rugby.
“That takes enthusiasm, love for the game and sheer determination to not decide you’ve had enough, which a lot of players do, and that’s fine. But he’s not done that.
Ben and Danny played together for a long time, but it shows their consistency.
“Danny has done it for a lot of years without the big dip and without the thing that goes, ‘All right we’ll move on’. You’ve always had to keep your eye on him because he keeps producing.”
Care, 37, will join Youngs, Jason Leonard, Owen Farrell, Dan Cole and Courtney Lawes in making it to three figures with England.
Wigglesworth (inset) says Care is the same bloke he first played with 16 years ago. He said: “He’s great to coach. You get a good sounding board off him with where the group is, how they’re feeling and what we might need.
“The thing about Danny is he’s probably been incredibly popular as a 37-year-old, as a 21-year-old – across all these eras. He’s still a stable guy the lads will go to in order to smile and feel good.”