Rugby World Cup 2019: Meet Lewis Ludlam, the humble England bolter who nearly lost his entire rugby career

England have more than just Willi Heinz to thank New Zealand for this month. The scrum-half made his debut for the country of his grandmother on Sunday, but as he lined up with his new teammates at Twickenham for the national anthem, someone else was catching the eye just next to him.

Two people along the line to Heinz’s left, Lewis Ludlam was belting out God Save The Queen exactly how he likes to play: at full gusto. The video of the Northampton Saints flanker was quickly hailed on Twitter as the perfect display of what it should mean to represent your country, but there was a little bit more to Ludlam’s raw emotion as he prepared to make his international bow.

“I like to get myself worked up before a game and play off that emotion but not like that ever really,” explained Ludlam, who against all odds forced his way into Eddie Jones’s final 31-man squad to book his place on the plane to Japan.

“Seeing my dad in the crowd while singing the anthems gave me goosebumps, gave me that extra little bit of something.

“I haven’t (seen the video) but I did catch sight of him in the crowd while the anthems were going on so to see him belting it out made me want to sing it that little bit louder too.”

So why do England have New Zealand to thank? Had it not been for another Kiwi, Ludlam could easily have slipped through the net. Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd arrived at the club last year with plenty of questions in need of answering to begin the club’s renaissance, but one in particular revolved around a talented young player that he had spotted at the 2015 Under-20s Championship - but who he had not seen since.

Ludlam was part of the England team that came unstuck in the final against the Baby Blacks, gaining the award for the team’s player of the tournament in the process that appeared to be just reward for his resilience in bouncing back from early disappointment when he was initially released by the Saints’ academy at age 14, only to work his way back in.

But little did he know that the setbacks were far from over. Injuries and difficulty to adapt to the transition from academy to professional was compounded by the fact that Northampton had James Haskell, Tom Wood, Teimana Harrison and Heinrich Brussow to fit into their back-row - all four of them international players - and on top of that, his contract was nearing its conclusion.

“This time last year was like almost one last shot at it for me, trying to fight for another club contract,” Ludlam recalls. “There was a lot of back-row competition at the club and Chris Boyd said to me when he came in, said that he could give me an opportunity but he didn’t really see where I fitted into his plans, but he gave me the chance to make an impression and it was up to me. I can’t thank him enough for just giving me that opportunity.

“I didn’t even know if I would get a contract (renewal). I had one year left. I hadn’t played more than a handful of games since my Junior World Cup. You see a lot of stuff (on social media) - ‘Where’s Ludlam? What’s he doing? Hasn’t played since the Junior World Championship’. Boydy said the same when he came in. He’d seen me at the Under 20s, seen me perform there.

“That alongside injury and a lot of back row competition at the club. I think we had four internationals at the time. It’s not easy as a young player. I picked up injuries at the wrong time, which doesn’t help. And once you pick up injuries, it’s hard to get into a rhythm and break through.”

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Ludlam appears to be made of the right stuff though. His resilience not only won through to earn a new deal at Franklin’s Gardens, but it put him onto the England radar. Initially, Ludlam missed out on the end-of-season non-test match against the Barbarians, but when club colleague Harrison withdrew from the squad, Ludlam got the call-up. Something caught the eye of the England coaching team, and Jones decided to take a punt on the 23-year-old. Having already won Boyd over, Ludlam now had the chance to do the same with the national team boss - no matter how unlikely that seemed at the start of July.

“I wasn’t’ really expecting to be called in to camp so it was taking each week as it comes, so to get my cap on Sunday was just an unbelievable experience,” he added. “It was incredible. It begun as: I’ll go for a couple of weeks, learn, take in as much as I can, hopefully next season push on and you might get an international call-up. You only get told a week in advance. I was thinking ‘it could be my last week next week’. I was just taking each as it comes, taking as much on board as possible from the other players and coaches. It is bizarre how it’s ended out.”

But as the first week past, and then the second, and then the training camp in Treviso, Ludlam’s name refused to go away to the point that he was named on the bench for the opening warm-up match with Wales, where fate intervened once again only this time on his side as Sam Underhill’s withdrawal handed him a full debut in the No 6 shirt.

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Explaining what stood out so much about him, Jones said: "He is one of those uncomplicated players. You ask him to do something and he does it, and he does it at 100 per cent. He has got nice balance as a rugby player, he feels the game pretty well, he understands the game pretty well and he has just got growth in him – he is just going to get better and better.

"He played against a Welsh back row that had two Lions, Moriarty and Tipuric. I think Tipuric has played 60-odd Tests. Moriarty has probably played 30 Tests, so he's playing against an experienced back row, and he didn’t look out of place. In fact he looked like he's only just beginning, which he is. And he's only going to get better and better."

"He is uncomplicated, he just wants to be a good rugby player, he wants to work hard. To me he's one of those old-fashioned sixes that just does the job. He carries hard, tackles hard, cleans out hard: ‘what do you want me to do, coach, I'll do it. What does the team need?’

“He's one of those boys that’re such valuable players. They're complimentary players, they allow others to do their jobs. He's had to beat some good players to get there. You've got Chris Robshaw who's a 75-capper, an outstanding player. There's others in that position. He's done really well to get in.”

But all this success in such a short space of time has not gone to his head. Ludlam still remembers where he came from and the people who helped him along the way, as displayed through the touching gesture to invite his primary school teacher to Twickenham on Sunday 13 years after promising he would if he ever played for England.

His parents, Dorinda and Arron, were or course there too. Their heritage has played a big part in Ludlam’s upbringing, with his mother giving him his Guyanese background and father coming from a Palestinian and Egyptian family, but he was born and raised in England and on Sunday became the 1,407th player to represent the national team, capping what might be rugby union’s most beautiful story currently in the English game.

So who better to let sum it all up than Ludlam himself: “I think it’s still sinking in for him. Bizarre few weeks; a crazy couple of days.”