When Ben Youngs arrives home in Norfolk on Friday, he may have time to reflect on a momentous season.
He will talk to Nick, his father, about the way in which he has jumped from third-choice scrum half at Leicester to first-choice for England, he will go into conclave with Matt O’Connor, the Leicester backs coach and from the country, Australia, damaged so badly by Youngs on Saturday.
He will not be off on a jolly with some other members of the touring party in Sydney or Las Vegas, in part because he could not legally buy a drink in the United States, given that he will not turn 21 until September. And, being the age he is, he may just enjoy life on the family farm for a while before turning his mind to what he knows he needs to do, which is to improve his game.
That is the point about Youngs: he has good people around him and he is bright enough to know that he has won a battle, but not the war.
He watched from the bench this morning while Danny Care, superseded for the No 9 jersey in Sydney last weekend, played in England’s final tour game against New Zealand Maori at McLean Park; he knows that Care, only 23, will respond, that Joe Simpson will bounce back from the hamstring strain that kept him out of this tour to Australasia, that Micky Young at Newcastle Falcons is in the offing, never mind the older players, Paul Hodgson and Richard Wigglesworth.
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Above all, Youngs will keep Harry Ellis in mind. A year ago, Ellis had just played for the Lions against South Africa, he was England’s scrum half and shared the half-back duties for Leicester with Julien Dupuy, leaving Youngs to learn from them. Now Ellis is racked by a chronic knee condition that has undermined his career and his ability to play at the highest level once more is in question, at the age of 28.
“Anyone who says the England shirt is theirs is a bit of a mug,” Youngs said with refreshing candour. “All it takes is a really good performance from another player.”
This, of course, is not quite true, as Martin Johnson’s management approach has demonstrated. Johnson and his coaches have tried to avoid kneejerk reactions, they have tried to build consistency in selection as well as playing standards and they know that Youngs needs all the experience that he can find.
“It can be a short career — before you know it, with a click of the fingers, you can be struggling,” Youngs said.
So his answer, which is very much the Leicester way, is to knuckle down and improve. “I’ll sit down with Matt O’Connor and go through the season,” he said. “He’s a top man, we have a really good working relationship, we will talk about how to move forward and what he wants to see from me. I’ll catch up with the England coaches and see what they expect. I’ll keep on top of my skills.”
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Youngs is also an avid student of quality scrum halves the world over, players who have what he calls the X-factor. Justin Marshall, the most-capped of New Zealand half backs with 81 and only just retired, is a particular project but he enjoys watching the “little generals” who dominate France’s game — his former clubmate, Dupuy, who missed the RBS Six Nations Championship because of suspension, and Dimitri Yachvili, the Biarritz scrum half who has dominated several France-England encounters.
As it happens, Youngs is, like them, a goalkicker, even if his talents in that direction are seldom called upon. It is an offshoot from his days as a fly half at school, but he showed when Leicester played a South Africa XV at Welford Road last November that he could kick goals with the best of them, in the nerveless manner so evident when he made his first international start — and won only his third cap — in Saturday’s 21-20 win over Australia, and scored England’s first try with such aplomb.
“My aim over the last season was to get into the Leicester squad, so things have accelerated,” Youngs said. “Am I wary of second-season syndrome? If I work hard enough, that won’t be the case but I’m certainly not thinking about the World Cup.”
• England, runners-up at the previous two Junior World Championships, slipped to fourth place in Rosario, Argentina, on Monday night when they lost 27-22 to South Africa. New Zealand retained the title, mauling Australia 62-17 in the final.
How they line up
England XV (to play New Zealand Maori in Napier today): D Armitage (London Irish); D Strettle (Harlequins), M Tait (Sale Sharks), B Barritt (Saracens), C Ashton (Northampton); C Hodgson (Sale Sharks), D Care (Harlequins); D Flatman (Bath), G Chuter (Leicester), P Doran-Jones (Gloucester), D Attwood (Gloucester), G Parling (Leicester), C Robshaw (Harlequins, captain), S Armitage (London Irish), P Dowson (Northampton). Replacements: R Webber (London Wasps), D Cole (Leicester), D Ward-Smith (London Wasps), J Haskell (Stade Français), B Youngs (Leicester), S Geraghty (Northampton), B Foden (Northampton).