Youngs beat the odds to become Tigers hero
From an inauspicious start on a windy day in Doncaster, Tom Youngs went on to enjoy a fabulous career as a top-level hooker. Following his decision to retire, he jumped off his tractor to talk to Jon Newcombe about how the gamble paid off
AS a truly humble, salt-of-the-earth individual, Tom Youngs would ordinarily have wanted the ground to have swallowed him up last weekend when he led Leicester out for one final time alongside his daughter Maisie to a heroes’ reception at Welford Road.
It was a feeling he probably had when making his debut as a hooker whilst on loan at Nottingham back in April 2009, at the start of a journey that took him from being a straight up and down centre to Lions and England caps and turned him into a Tigers legend.
As someone there to witness the first step in his transformation, it’s fair to say his ‘darts’ were more Tin Can Alley than Ally Pally at Doncaster’s Castle Park the day he first stepped out onto the pitch in a competitive game with just a two on his back in the second half of the 2008/09 season.
“Donny, up there, it was an interesting game, pretty windy if I remember. I think my dad described my throwing as like throwing a beach ball in the wind,” recalled Youngs. “I would balls it up in games, I really would, but I would try and make the best of it. But everyone was so patient and brilliant at helping me along.
“People ask me what’s the best thing you’ve achieved in your career and one of them is winning Players’ Player of the Year in that first (full) season at Nottingham because that showed I really bought into being at Nottingham.”
It was South African Heyneke Meyer, left, Leicester’s then coach, who believed Youngs was always a hooker in truth, just one playing out of position. “Heyneke had seen me all pre-season as a centre and I’d played a few times off the bench at the club under him and some second team games, and he just said I think you should move to hooker and give it a go,” Youngs revealed. “I was pretty keen, I could probably see a bigger future if I could do it. Talk is cheap, we can all say we are going to do this but actually doing it is the hardest thing.
“Originally I was going to come back to Norfolk and play at North Walsham and start in a lower league but Nottingham had a bit of an injury crisis at hooker and Glenn (Delaney, the DoR at the time) was pretty keen for me to go.
“I finished off the season there and played about 15 games mainly off the bench, and following season I was there full-time and did two full seasons in the end. Glenn took me under his wing and away I went.”
After 60-plus games for Nottingham, Youngs returned to Leicester ready to take the next step on his journey. Time in the Championship had served him well because barely two years later, Youngs won the first of his 28 England caps and would later win three for the Lions and captained his club from the middle of the front row 98 times.
“Ultimately when I look back now it was a huge challenge to change from a centre to hooker, and one I loved,” he said. “The physical side of the game I loved and going from centre to hooker you got to do more of that so it was great. I loved every minute of that journey. I wouldn’t change it at all. I wouldn’t be where I am now without moving position.”
“My dad described my throwing as like throwing a beach ball in the wind”