62 Thursday April 28 2022 | the timesSportRugby union
Anthony Watson will swap Bath for
Leicester Tigers in the summer after
the Gallagher Premiership leaders won
the race to sign the England wing.
The Times understands that Watson,
28, decided to leave the Rec this year,
having joined from London Irish in- He was pursued by several other
clubs, including Irish, Sale Sharks and
Wasps — where his brother Marcus
plays — but has opted to move to Tigers
when his contract expires in June.
Watson, who has won 51 England
caps and toured with the British & Irish
Hooker Youngs retires at 35
The Leicester Tigers hooker Tom
Youngs has retired with immediate ef-
fect after 16 years in professional rugby.
The 35-year-old, who won 28 caps for
England and three for the British &
Irish Lions, has not played this season,
having taken compassionate leave from
the game.
Youngs’s wife, Tiffany, has a form of
blood cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma,
that she was told was terminal in 2014.
The cancer went into remission in 2018
but she was said to be unwell again in
October — so Youngs chose to remain
with her in Norfolk and handed theLeicester captaincy to the England
prop Ellis Genge. Yesterday Youngs
announced his retirement.
“I had always planned around this
season being my last and I am comfort-
able with the timing of it now,” he said.
“I have no regrets and, looking back, am
proud of what I have achieved at the
only club I ever wanted to play for.”
Youngs, the older brother of the
England and Tigers scrum half Ben,
made 215 appearances for Leicester and
captained them 98 times. Only Martin
Johnson has led the club more often.
Youngs’s father, Nick, also played for
Leicester, with whom Tom won a
Premiership title in 2013.Will KelleherO
ver the course of his
professional career Matt
Symons has achieved far
more than he would have
thought possible when, at
the age of 18, he played a trial game
for Saracens’ academy, felt completely
out of his depth and found the
experience so dispiriting that he
turned to rowing instead.
He has not achieved quite as much
as he might have done, given that an
England call-up has seemed a distinct
possibility at various times during his
stint as a remarkably consistent
performer in the second row
for London Irish, Wasps and
Harlequins. But the international
call never quite came and, in
that sense, he is no different
from the vast majority of
professional players.
What Symons has
achieved, though —
and this gives him an
enormous sense of
satisfaction — is to
have played a game
he loves for a living
for almost a decade,
to have called time
on his career on his
own terms, and
then to have
developed a clear
sense of where he
is heading next.
These are the
sort of understated
accomplishments that
every professional player
longs to achieve.
Symons, 32, an integral
part of the Harlequins side
who won the Gallagher‘If I hadn’t done
rowing I would
not have made
it as rugby pro’
Premiership title in such thrilling
fashion last season, announced
yesterday that he will retire at the end
of the season, with a job lined up in
commercial property in September at
a company, JLL, for which he has
already worked on a part-time basis.
“After winning the title last year, I
knew I was approaching the final year
of my contract, and I thought the
time was right to start planning
ahead,” Symons said. “I’ve always had
an eye to the future and been
fortunate that JLL have allowed me to
go in and work part-time with them
for the past two years. I’ve been
working there on my days off with
Quins and I’ve really enjoyed it. Now
an opportunity has come up to work
there full-time and I’m going to grab
it with both hands.”
Before he steps into his suit and
begins the regular commute into
central London, Symons has the
chance to win a second Premiership
title with Harlequins, and a victory
over Northampton Saints tomorrow
evening would clinch a play-off
spot. Whether that leads on to
another Twickenham showpiece
remains to be seen, but by
dipping his toe into the
commercial world in the
past couple of years,
Symons has seen
that rugby can
equip its players
for life beyond
the game.
“We’re
in a high-
performance
environment in rugby and I
take comfort from the fact
I started with very limited
knowledge,” he said. “I
went from rowing into
rugby and I was out of
my depth, but
understood that you
have to put the hours
in. I know that I’m
starting from the
bottom again and
I’ve got to workRetiring Harlequins
lock Matt Symons tells
John Westerby how his
mother’s intervention
shaped sporting career
my way up. I also understand the
importance of holding your hand up
when you don’t know something. You
can’t bluff it on a rugby pitch. I don’t
want to be bluffing it in the corporate
world either.”
Symons has certainly had to work
for all he achieved in professional
rugby. Growing up in Hertfordshire,
he was tall and had enough talent to
represent his county, but when he
played a trial game with Saracens’
senior academy, he was put firmly in
his place.
“I wasn’t up to the standard, either
physically or technically,” he said.
“I felt like a little boy. I was at a
comprehensive state school in north
London and never had exposure to
any serious coaching. It was a big step
up from Hertfordshire under-18s to
those senior academy games. It was
a pretty sobering experience, I
remember the whole thing vividly.”It was at this point that his mother,
Sharon, suggested an alternative
avenue: the Sporting Giants
programme run by UK Sport to find
talented athletes who could transfer
to Olympic sports. Symons tried his
hand at rowing and showed enough
potential to be taken on to British
Rowing’s World Class Start scheme,
only for injuries to prevent him
progressing further.
“If I hadn’t done the rowing, I
wouldn’t have become a professional
rugby player,” he said. “I saw the level
of conditioning and commitment
needed to become an elite sportsman.
A lot of my best friends came through
that programme with me, some guys
went on and did very well, won
Olympic gold medals [Alex Gregory
won golds in London and Rio in the
coxless four]. Some guys retired
without achieving much. But it
shaped all of us in different ways.”He returned to rugby, spending a
season in the Championship with
Esher and hoping to catch the eye of
a Premiership club, but when nothing
was forthcoming he decided to spend
three months in New Zealand.
Living in Christchurch, he worked
hard on building up his 6ft 5in frame,
played club rugby for Canterbury
and soon found himself given an
unexpected opportunity to play Super
Rugby for the Chiefs. He then opted
to return to England with
London Irish and has
become one of the
Premiership’s
outstanding locks.
“I was a late
developer,” he said. “I
didn’t grow until I was
17 and didn’t fill out
until I was 22 or 23. I’d
been to a state school
where we could barely get
15 guys together to play a
match, and that’s a challenge a lot
of guys from similar backgrounds can
have. Unless you have exposure to
those elite environments from 13, 14,
learning how to jump properly in
lineouts or scrummage or pass off
your left hand, it can be tricky.
“I’m a huge advocate of having
pathways available for late developers.
I think the stronger our university
system can get, the better. If I was a 17
or 18-year-old, I’m big on them going
and pushing themselves academically
alongside their rugby rather than
compromising their academic careers
for the sake of an academy spot. Get
your studying done first, then it will
allow you to grow into your body.”
At the other end of his career,
Symons has been back to university,
completing a master’s degree in
real estate in readiness for the new
role that awaits him after one last
season, and possibly one more
Premiership title.
“It was great to get that title ticked
off last year, a lot of players never
have that opportunity,” he said. “It
would have been nice to have played
some international rugby, but there
are players much better than me who
have missed out, that’s the way it
goes. I’m incredibly content with my
career. Contentment is the word.”JUAN GASPARINI/JMP/SHUTTERSTOCKAfter a spell playing rugby in New Zealand, inset left, Symons has become one of
the Premiership’s outstanding locks and could yet bow out with a second titleMy three lock idols
Symons on the best second rows
he has played with or againstBrodie Retallick
Team-mate at Chiefs
Incredibly skilful, he pulled stuff off
that I could never dream of.Joe Launchbury
Team-mate at Wasps, 2016-2018
He’s the glue in that Wasps team —
without him they’re a different beast.Sébastien Vahaamahina
Clermont Auvergne
Just a colossus of a man.Northampton
Saints v
Harlequins
Gallagher Premiership
Tomorrow
Kick-off: 7.45pm
TV: BT Sport 2Leicester win race to sign England’s Watson
Lions in 2017 and 2021, is believed to be
taking a pay cut to join Steve
Borthwick’s Leicester.
With the fly half George Ford, the
captain Ellis Genge and the wing Ne-
mani Nadolo departing Welford Road
at the end of the season — to Sale, Bris-
tol Bears and Australia respectively —
Watson’s signing is a key piece of busi-
ness for Borthwick. He will join Tigers
alongside South Africa’s World Cup-
winning fly half Handré Pollard.
It is also understood that Leicester
are in talks with Chris Ashton over an
extension of his short-term contract. If
he stays, having arrived from Worcester
Warriors in February, he, Watson andthe England full back Freddie Steward
could form a formidable back three.
Watson has been out since suffering a
bad knee ligament injury in October
but could return before the end of the
season with Bath.
He came through the prolific London
Irish academy system, graduating to
the senior team as a teenager in 2011
before moving to Bath two years later.
In moving to Leicester he is going
from the bottom-placed Premiership
team to the top, and will have his sights
set on going to a third World Cup in- Watson has scored 22 tries for En-
gland, having made his debut in 2014,
against the All Blacks, at the age of 20.
Will Kelleher
Deputy Rugby Correspondent