Apprentice Tizard working to become the master

LESSONS learned from England’s finest are underpinning Hugh Tizard’s push to mix it with the best.

Harlequins lock Tizard, 20, right, began last year on loan at London Scottish but ended it as a fixture in Quins’ first team squad, having starred for England U20s and been invited to train with Red Rose senior team regulars Joe Launchbury, Maro Itoje and Charlie Ewels.

The former Cranleigh schoolboy Tizard said: “In the first week of this new season I did some sessions with England. It was fascinating to see guys like Launchbury, Ewels and Itoje close-up and I used it as a learning experience. It was a chance to absorb as much as I could and there’s definitely stuff from Maro and Joe that I took away.

“Maro’s lineout ability, he’s so explosive there and calls it well, so just seeing his little foot movements and the way he did things was good to pick up on, while with Joe, you look at his sheer work-rate in training and that’s something I’m trying to bring to my game.

“If I can work as hard as Joe and my involvements, tackles and carries are all north of 10 or 15 per game, they’re good stats to have. All those guys were good in giving me pointers and I went away from the experience thinking, ‘Yeah, I learnt a lot from that’.

Tizard’s year of learning continued when he was selected for Premiership matches against Northampton, Gloucester and Bristol, although the biggest lessons were arguably delivered in Europe during a chastening 49-7 home defeat by Racing 92. He recalls: “I came in at the last minute against Northampton in November and it was such a cool experience playing with Danny Care and Mike Brown – guys I grew up watching – and I managed to carry that into the Gloucester game which we won with 13-men.

“Although it was a really hard result to take against Racing, we’d acquitted ourselves well at Munster a week earlier and I took a lot from the experiences.

“Racing was obviously a disappointing day for us, but it was still brilliant for me to go up against international locks like Bernard Le Roux, Dominic Bird and Donnacha Ryan. You can play ten A-League games and not learn as much as you did in that one game.”