Five matches that made Ben Youngs

Ben Youngs is keen to add to this list.

When the 35-year-old announced his impending retirement on Tuesday, he urged everyone to hold off the career retrospectives until the end of the season.

“It’s about finishing this chapter of my life with some more success,” he said.

“I’m not done just yet.”

There is already plenty of material to go at though.

Youngs has appeared in 127 Tests for England – a record for a men’s player – turned out 332 times for Leicester, made two Test appearances for the British and Irish Lions and marked his Barbarians debut last June in a win over Fiji.

Youngs was part of the wider Leicester squad when the Tigers lifted the domestic crown in 2007 and 2009, but it was in 2010, still only 20, that he took a starring role.

He had already been named as the breakthrough player of the Premiership season and his team-mates’ player of the season, when an impish side-step and dart took him under the posts and helped Leicester on their way to a 33-27 victory over Saracens in the final at Twickenham.

One reporter, and several thousand others, could see the potential.

The first of those caps had arrived as a makeshift wing, when Youngs came off the bench to replace Ugo Monye in a 15-15 draw with Scotland at Murrayfield in 2010.

By his fifth though, he was in his specialist spot and terrorising the world’s best.

Up against Australia’s Will Genia, a livewire Youngs was at the heart of a joyous 35-18 win over the Wallabies, dummying on his own line to set in train Chris Ashton’s memorable coast-to-coast try.

Less than a year later and all that optimism was hard to recall.

England’s Rugby World Cup campaign in New Zealand, after successive final appearances, never got past first gear or the last eight.

But Youngs was a bright spot amid the misery.

Richard Wigglesworth had edged ahead of Youngs in the pecking order in the run-up to the tournament.

As he came on to the pitch in the 50th minute of the tournament opener against Argentina, with his team trailing by six points, Youngs faced a formidable task.

It was one he rose to.

England rallied around Youngs’ urgency as he upped the pace, tired out Argentina’s ageing forwards and dragged his side back into the game.

By the time of the 2019 tournament, Youngs’ game, along with England’s, had changed.

Tempo came via sleight of hand, rather than fast feet.

Youngs provided in spades as England swept past New Zealand via a blitzkrieg opening that delivered a try after just 90-odd seconds.

He rolled back the years with a trademark close-range snipe, giving Anton Lienert-Brown the eyes and scampering in, only to see his second-half score chalked off for a small knock-on in the build-up.

From their family farm in Norfolk, Youngs has played alongside his older brother Tom in far further-flung fields, representing Tigers, Lions and their country together.

Tom’s own retirement came two years ago. He played only the pre-season of his final campaign, after being granted leave to care for his terminally ill wife Tiffany.

After announcing he would hang up his boots, Tom was invited back into the dressing room for a final time to address the team before their match against Bristol.

Ben, who had turned down a chance to tour with the Lions in 2017 to support Tom and Tiffany, started at scrum-half.

“I just talked about how I’d love to do one more tackle for them and one more carry for them but I can’t,” said Tom afterwards.

“I talked about Tiff a little bit. I talked about life, and how when you’re in the moment, in that changing room, you don’t realise how good it is and how lucky you are sometimes. Ultimately, you don’t realise how cruel life can be sometimes, so you have to enjoy those moments.”

Leicester won 56-26.