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Danny Care and his 'big kind of annoyance' with Stuart Lancaster

(Photo by David Rogers/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

Harlequins scrum-half Danny Care has shed light on his bumpy relationship with Stuart Lancaster, explaining his frustrations over team selection with the former England boss during his 2012 to 2015 stint in charge. The 35-year-old half-back earned the first of his 84 Test caps when chosen by Martin Johnson in 2008, but he went on to endure setbacks after Lancaster took over four years later.

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Care and Lancaster had previously worked with each other during their time at Leeds in the mid-noughties, but that rapport wasn’t of much assistance for the No9 when it came to making an impression under Lancaster at Test level. It was 2012 when they first had words and that frustration re-emerged at the 2015 World Cup where the only game time Care had was in the dead rubber pool match versus Uruguay after England had already been eliminated from the tournament.

Last capped under Eddie Jones in 2018, Care touched on his stint with Lancaster’s England in an in-depth interview in the latest edition of Rugby Journal. He started by recalling 2012, a time when he was a Premiership title winner with Harlequins but was behind Ben Youngs and Lee Dickson in the Test team pecking order for that summer’s tour to South Africa.

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Addressing his at times rocky relationship with Lancaster, Care explained: “If I believe in something I really struggle to stay quiet and after one training session I said to Stuart, ‘Are you telling me these two are playing better than me? You can’t tell me that Dickson deserves to play ahead of me?'”

Having watched Youngs start and Dickson provide bench cover in the opening two tour defeats, Care was eventually chosen to start the drawn third Test versus the Springboks. However, there was no satisfying reprieve three years later at the World Cup when he found himself behind Youngs and Richard Wigglesworth in the squad.

“My big kind of annoyance with that was Wiggy was really good mates with (assistant coach) Andy Farrell. They were mates and went on holiday together and I remember the first two selections for Fiji and Wales and he [Lancaster] said: ‘Yeah, Faz wants to pick Wiggy’ and my response was, ‘Who is the head coach?'”

Bridges were mended a year later between the paid during a chance encounter at a Dubai hotel. “I was like, ‘Right, I’m going to speak with him. I don’t need to have bad blood with anyone’. We made friends again and I saw him not long ago when we were playing Leinster and we are alright now, but it was kind of a weird relationship we had in the past.”

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Care has since gone on to win a second Premiership title with Harlequins while Lancaster is into his sixth season as a senior coach at Leo Cullen’s Leinster.

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AM 40 minutes ago
'Freelancer' Izaia Perese shows the need for true inclusivity in Australian rugby

That's Cron's job though. Australia has had one of the most penalised scrums in international rugby for a long time. Just look at the scrum win loss percentage and scrum penalties. That is your evidence. AA has been the starter during that period. Pretty simple analysis. That Australia has had a poor scrum for a long time is hardly news. If bell and thor are not on the field they are woeful. So you are just plain wrong. They have very little time for the lions so doing the same old things that dont work is not going to get them there.


Ainsley is better than our next best tighthead options and has been playing well at scrum time for Lyon in the most competitive comp in the world. Superstar player? No. But better than the next best options. So that is a good enough guide. The scrummaging in the Prem is pretty good too so there is Sio's proof. Same analysis for him. Certainly better in both cases than Super, where the brumbies had the worst win loss and scrum pen in Super. Who plays there? Ohh yes... And the level of scrummaging in Super is well below the URC, prem and France with the SA teams out.


Nongorr is truly woeful. He's 130kg and gets shoved about. That just should not be happening at that weight for a specialist prop who has always played rugby cf pone with leauge. He has had enough time to develop at 23. You'd be better off with Pone who is at least good around the field for the moment and sending Nongorr on exchange to France or England to see if they can improve him with better coaching as happened with Skelton and Meafou. He isn't going to develop in time in super if he has it at all.


Latu is a better scrummaging hooker than BPA and Nasser. and he's the best aussie player over the ball at ruck time. McReight's super jackling percentage hasnt converted to international level but latu consistently does it at heniken level, which is similar to test level in the big games. With good coaching at La Rochelle he's much improved though still has the odd shocker. He should start the November games.

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