Ben Youngs admits he ‘dodged a bullet’ as scrum-half prepares to return from injury six weeks ahead of schedule

Interview: The England scrum-half was not expected to play again this season, but he tells Hugh Godwin why he’s ready to return and help Leicester keep up a proud tradition

Ben Youngs could return to Leicester's line-up this weekend six weeks ahead of schedule (Getty)

Rugby players are forever under scrutiny for the language they use, but when Ben Youngs says he “dodged a bullet” with the knee injury he suffered playing for England in Italy two months ago, the strength of feeling is understandable.

Youngs has returned to training with his club Leicester and the 28-year-old scrum-half looks likely to face fierce local rivals Northampton this Saturday, with Tigers placed third in the Premiership table and ready to mount their perennial assault on the end-of-season league-title play-offs.

The prospects looked much bleaker in Rome on the first Sunday in February when Youngs’s knee was wrenched at a horribly unnatural angle.

Youngs was run over by a Ferrari – or, more accurately, he was preparing to pass the ball when he was battered backwards by the combined 230kgs weight of Italy’s tighthead prop Simone Ferrari and England captain Dylan Hartley as the Azzurri player tried to counter-ruck and disrupt possession.

England’s initial announcement that Youngs had ruptured the medial collateral ligament in his left knee and was likely to be out for four months appeared to rule him out of Leicester’s bid for a first Premiership crown since 2013, and cast doubt on him joining his country’s summer tour to South Africa.

“When I first did it, like anyone else you just want to know the extent of the damage,” says Youngs.

“It was certainly pretty discomforting but the care we get is unbelievable. I saw the specialist and went from there.

“I certainly feel like I probably dodged a bullet a little bit, as it could have been a lot worse than what it was, so it was pleasing once I found out I didn’t need an operation and that ice and corrective rehab would get me right, and that I would still be able to play at the back end of the year.

“Ed Hollis (Leicester’s head of medical services) is fantastic, he has been at the Brumbies a couple of times, he has been at Tottenham Hotspur, and there is a reason to trust whatever he says.”

Youngs could return as early as this weekend for Leicester (Land Rover)

Youngs was winning his 74th England cap when he crumpled to the turf at the Stadio Olimpico and his loud scream was heard via the referee’s microphone in millions of living rooms back home.

“I’ve had to take stick for the yelp,” Youngs says now. “Sometimes it is the fear of what it might be, especially when it is your knee. When something like that happens you fear the worst.

“You think of the amount of times you ride and get tackled, or you make a tackle and you get up and you are fine and then something innocuous like that happens and it puts you out. It is a bit bizarre and there is not a lot you can do about that.

“I watched it back just to see. I just wanted to see how it happened.

“I just passed the ball and got counter-rucked and you are in a vulnerable position and you get caught. I was just unbelievably unlucky.”

The scrum-half suffered the injury in England's win over Italy (Getty Images)

The injury cost Youngs any further involvement in the Six Nations Championship, as he hobbled around with his knee in a brace 24 hours a day, so he became a TV viewer himself as England sank into finishing fifth for the first time since 1987.

“You want to be out there and contributing but you can’t, so you just watch it,” Youngs says. “I watched one of the games with my dad, fairly low key. I have been in the club in the mornings blitzing the rehab stuff and doing all the weights and then out of the door at one o’clock, and I have just been able to spend some real quality time with my family and my kids. It has been refreshing – it has been nice.”

Youngs remains cautious over England’s three-Test trip to South Africa tour in June – “We’ll just see; I just want to get some minutes [for Leicester] because I haven’t played a lot” – but he has an upbeat appraisal of how the 10-times league champions have revived after losing six matches on the trot in November and December saw them crash out of Europe and hover in mid-table domestically.

“The turning point for Leicester was when we went to [play Saracens at] Allianz Park and we won [28-20 on 25 February],” Youngs says.

“We hadn’t won there ever in a Premiership game, and the boys got a bonus point that day. A big win like that can galvanise the whole team and give you a huge boost. Since then we have been able to string that consistency together.

“Of course we want to play well all year round but sometimes you realise if you get a couple of bad results, as long as you don’t give yourselves too much to make up, you can still do it.”

Youngs admits he 'dodged a bullet' with his injury (Land Rover)

A home tie in the Premiership play-offs is likely to be beyond Leicester, with Exeter and Saracens hot favourites to take the top two places, but Youngs takes comfort from last season’s efforts – while admitting the pressure to avoid being the first Tigers squad to fail to contest the knockout phase since the four-team format was introduced in 2005/6 is a powerful incentive.

“I think that makes us always get there: the pride that we’ve always made the top four,” he says.

“Even when we’ve had seasons when it’s been really disruptive and we’ve had coaches come and go, we’ve still always had that resilience and the players’ determination that we want to be successful, and the club always demands success.

“We’ve been able to do that even when we were faced with adversity. Certainly last year with Cockers [Richard Cockerill] going, and Mauge [Aaron Mauger] going, and Matt [O’Connor, the current head coach] coming in, we still made the top four, and we lost to Wasps narrowly [21-20] in the last couple of minutes.

“That’s something I’m very proud of, that the club is able to do, year on year. We certainly want to make sure that we are not the team that don’t make it.”

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