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January 19, 2010

Posted on 01/19/2010

Battered and bruised

Donald McRae meets Leicester and England flanker Lewis Moody in familiar surroundings as he prepares for vital games in the colours of the Tigers and his country in The Guardian.

"Lewis Moody rubs his cut and bruised face defiantly on another freezing afternoon in Leicester. The brown scab on his right cheek is matched by the yellowing bruise under his left eye and the marks on his forehead, but Moody looks cheerfully concentrated. Even speculative suggestions that his exuberant form in the autumn internationals could result in his appointment as England captain for next month's Six Nations can be safely ignored. He is currently England's best player, by a distance, but Moody's mind is locked on his starkly familiar surroundings.
"This weekend his beloved Leicester Tigers travel to Ospreys as leaders of the toughest group in the Heineken Cup – knowing that one more grinding victory in their final qualifying match will guarantee a quarter-final place in Europe's supreme club competition. Leicester also head the Premiership, after their rise to the top of the table was confirmed by a recent resounding win over their perennial rivals, Wasps, in a match which resulted in Moody's latest battle wounds.

"It's not pretty or glamorous," he says intently, talking less about his battered face than the training ground at Oadby as his gaze sweeps across the muddied field and back to the brick laundry room where we've been huddling against the cold. "I've spent the last 14 years here and I still absolutely love it. It's given me some incredible memories."

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