Can Youngs Father and Son Beat the All Blacks?

When Nick Youngs takes his seat at Twickenham next Saturday afternoon beside his wife, parents and brother to watch his son Ben take on the All Blacks in his first start at headquarters his mind may wander momentarily back to 1983.

The stadium may have changed dramatically in the ensuing 27 years but the scene will be the same in six days’ time as it was when Nick was part of an England team who beat the mighty New Zealand 15-9, one of only six wins in 33 tests over the course of 105 years.

“The smell of hot dogs in the car park, a hint of alcohol on people’s breaths, the chill of early winter, the descending gloom from the sky and the roar of the crowd after the Haka as battle commences,” describes Youngs senior prosaically. “That hasn’t changed in 27 years and it won’t for the next 27 either.”

Nick won six caps for England between 1983-4 as a bull of a scrum half, unlike his more slippery, athletic son who has made the England number nine jersey his own after scoring a world-class try in his first start for England to beat Australia in Sydney last June, a result that gives the men in white real hope to upset the odds on Saturday in what is the first of four, back-to-back autumn internationals.

In contrast to the cricketing father and son combo of Chris and Stuart Broad, who appear to be in constant competition to better each other, Nick lets his second son get on with it, a situation that Ben is more than happy with.

“He’s never mentioned beating the All Blacks to me, ever,” admits the Leicester scrum half. “In fact, I don’t even know how many caps Dad won. We never compare each other as players and he rarely gives me any advice at all.

“Don’t get me wrong, Dad and I have a fantastic relationship but the game’s moved on since he played and he leaves it up to me. I couldn’t think of anything worse than him nausing me all the time about rugby. He doesn’t talk about it, I don’t ask about it and that way we are both happy.”

Nick is in total agreement. “Ben’s got to plough his own field,” says the now Norfolk farmer, aptly. “Of course there have been times when we’ve had the odd chat in which my message is always work, work, work, but in general I leave Ben to work it out. He’s doing a pretty good job at it and I can tell you he’s a much better scrum half already than I ever was.”

Maybe, but it is Youngs senior who has the win under his belt against the most iconic team in world rugby and although he tries initially to play down his career and of his support of his son the truth lurks just below the surface.

Take November 19th, 1983. “I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time but now I realise what a special moment beating New Zealand was in my life,” he admits. “Some great Englishmen were on the field that day: Wheeler, Cusworth, Woodward, Winterbottom, Colclough, Slemen, Dodge, Hare to name just some. Six of the team were Leicester Tigers and we’d beaten the All Blacks ten days earlier playing for the Midlands.

“The All Blacks were chomping at the bit for revenge and sported players such as Murray Mexted, Stu Wilson and the current Wallabies coach, Robbie Deans. It wasn’t pretty. We kicked all afternoon playing ten-man rugby and it worked. Basic, but effective.”

Six years later Ben was born, two years after elder brother Tom who plays as a hooker for the Leicester Tigers, and from pretty much the moment they were able to both run their father drip-fed the boys with rugby.

“We lived on a farm in Norfolk and we’d spend many hours in the garden or fields with a rugby ball,” recalls Nick, now 50 years old. “I made some rugby posts out of irrigation pipes so that the boys could kick, but we also practiced two-on-ones and I’d also kick high balls up to them both.

“There are many males in my extended family so often you’d find us all down on the beach at Cromer or Sheringham in the summer playing rugby as well. Ben’s heroes were the French pair, Rougerie and Michalak but at 16, having played in virtually every position in the back line except scrum half, he was told nine would be his best position and when he then broke into the England Under 16 team I knew he had a chance of making it in rugby.”

A chance that Youngs junior has clasped with both hands, which is why the family will be out en force at Twickenham on Saturday, even reluctant mother and wife Patricia Youngs, known by everyone as “Trot” because of her early love of horses.

“I’ll be the proudest Dad in the world when I see Ben come on to the pitch against the All Blacks,” Nick admits. “It will be a very special moment. I feel blessed but also nervous for my son.

“But Trot would much rather be back at the farm with the dogs. She feels she has to be at Twickenham for Nick but she finds watching him terribly nerve-wracking and would prefer a phone call when it’s over to say that it’s finished, that Ben’s unscathed and that we won.”

Is that last request likely? “Well, if England play even close to the style we produced in 1983 they’ll be murdered. The last thing they should do is kick the ball to the back three.

“They have to play, just as they did against Australia in the summer, although better still. They have to put in a performance. I know Nick’s up for it and the boys are buzzing after beating the Wallabies so it should be quite a match and quite an occasion.”

And if anyone still questions Nick Youngs’s interest in his son’s career, even if it is from a distance, then a small insight into the Youngs living room last June should answer this.

“We all watched Australia versus England on TV and when Ben scored his try I was first off the sofa and suddenly found myself a foot away from the TV screen punching my fists,” recalls his father.

It appears those rugby games on the beaches of Norfolk and those irrigation pipe goal posts were well worth the effort.