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The Twitter reaction to retirement of 'nicest bloke' Mark Wilson

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Danny Care and Mike Brown were two of the many players to lead the tributes on social media after England back-rower Mark Wilson announced on Monday that he was retiring from playing with immediate effect. The 32-year-old, who won 23 England caps in his Test career, made a 14-minute appearance off the Newcastle bench in their January 29 Gallagher Premiership loss to Gloucester, his first action since June 12 last year. 

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It was in September when a meniscus tear to his knee was operated on. It was said at the time it would take between eight to twelve weeks to heal but it took Wilson longer than that to make his comeback and he has now called it quits following a career in which he featured off the bench in the 2019 World Cup final and won his last of his Test caps eleven months ago in the Guinness Six Nations game away to Ireland.  

Wilson, who played 237 games for Newcastle, wrote: “I have taken the decision to retire from rugby. It’s a decision that has been hard to make, but it’s the right one for me and my family right now.

“I’ve been involved with the Falcons since I was a 14-year-old coming over from Kendal for academy training and I have got some amazing memories. You never really know how you are going to end your career, but for me, this is my time to call it a day.

“My injury has made me re-assess where I’m at from a career point of view. That has been in the background and been in my thoughts quite a lot and whilst it hasn’t been the case that the injury has physically ended my career in its own right, it’s certainly been one of the main things which has added to my decision.”

The Valentine’s Day announcement by Wilson generated a huge reaction across the rugby world and Care, who was the England scrum-half in San Juan in June 2017 when the flanker made his Test debut, tweeted: “Good on you, Wils! Genuinely the nicest bloke I have met in Rugby. Take care and catch up soon pal.”

Brown, who was the England full-back that same day in Argentina, added: “Legend!” Others to comment on Wilson’s retirement included Alex Goode, who said “congratulations on an incredible career’, Ed Slater, who said “brilliant player and person”, and Ollie Phillips, who tweeted “hell of a knock”.  

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Rugby fans were similarly gracious in their comments about Wilson. Andrew Willis wrote: “Seriously underrated player, would have made a great England captain and could have had 50 caps in any other era.”

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J
JW 43 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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