Marler quits Harlequins prop calls time on England career to spend more time with family
Quins prop unable to commit ‘100 per cent’ World Cup setback but Jones ‘admires’ decision
The World Cup plans of Eddie Jones, the England head coach, were dealt a blow yesterday with news that one of his most experienced players, Harlequins prop Joe Marler, had announced his retirement from international rugby in order to spend more time with his young family.
Marler said he felt it would be unfair to carry on if “you can’t commit 100 per cent”.
He has formed part of a worldranked double act on the loosehead alongside Mako Vunipola. Even if Vunipola has been the more regular starter over the past 12 to 18 months, there is no doubt that Marler’s absence from the bench, and as a highly regarded stand-in were Vunipola to be injured, diminishes England’s resources, all the more so with Leicester’s Ellis Genge injured.
Jones stated that Marler had been “an integral part of the team” and would be “greatly missed”. Marler will continue to play for Harlequins and is set to feature against Gloucester on Saturday.
Marler, 28, has 59 caps, the last of them coming in the third Test against the Springboks in June, and is one of the senior figures in the side. He is valued not just for his propping ability but for his unique perspective on life.
“Joe is a great player as well as a team member, so I am disappointed and we will miss him,” said Jones, who was aware of what was bubbling when Marler pulled out on Sunday from the three-day camp that was starting in Bristol.
“He has made his decision on personal grounds and we understand his reasoning. Joe is a good guy, an honest, mature person who understands the demands of the game and the demands of family life. I have got to admire his honesty and the way he has gone about this.”
That sense of perspective, as well as honesty, have been in play before, causing Marler to withdraw from Jones’s first tour in charge, to Australia in 2016. On that occasion, he felt burdened by the scrutiny and furore created by the “Gypsy Boy” episode in the Six Nations a few months earlier when he was accused of insulting Wales prop Samson Lee.
The drawn-out saga, with television picking up the slur, had taken its toll. Marler was initially cleared by the Rugby Football Union, only for World Rugby to step in and ban the prop for two matches and fine him £20,000.
Marler is not unfamiliar with getting into disciplinary hot water. It was only a few weeks after the Lee incident and subsequent contentious suspension that he picked up a two-week ban for kicking Grenoble hooker Arnaud Heguy in the head.
This, though, is final and irrevocable, a reflection of the time needed to be in the right frame of mind to deal with the demands of international rugby. England have 13 Tests before the World Cup even starts next September, with the likelihood that if they were to make it to the final, they would be away from home for two months. This is no snap decision. Marler was mulling it over even before he embarked on the tour to South Africa in June.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” Marler told Harlequins TV. “I have been thinking about it for some time now. It was pre-south Africa that I’d already made my mind up. Albeit we lost the series 2-1, I had an amazing experience there with a great group of boys.
“I decided when I got back I’d see how it went with the club. But when I got the call-up for the next squad [last week], I thought the time was right to make the call to that I could not very much concentrate on my family as well as the club moving forward.
“I’m really grateful for the opportunities I have had in the England shirt under two regimes. I feel very lucky and privileged to have worn the shirt for as long as I did. But it’s the right time for me to stop now for me, for my family but also for England. You have got to give 100 per cent to something. I don’t feel I can give 100 per cent to the England shirt any more and that is not fair on the team.
“It’s not fair on my family, the time you have to spend away from them in order to commit to England. I can’t do it any more. Now is the right time for me to walk away and get some new blood in there.”
Genge, a similar sort of character to Marler, would be fancied to step up but the 23-year-old is recovering from knee surgery after having to fly home from the tour to South Africa after sustaining the injury in training.
Genge’s rehabilitation is progressing well but he has little or no chance of making the November series.
Alec Hepburn, the Exeter Chiefs prop, joined up with the squad as a replacement ahead of the third Test against the Springboks.