Courtney Lawes is not interested in being boxed in by nostalgia, sentiment or the easy line about legacy. At 37, with 105 caps behind him and his last England appearance coming at the 2023 World Cup, the Sale Sharks forward is chasing something far more immediate: another shot at England.
And that makes sense. Lawes spent two years in France with Brive before returning to the Prem with Sale Sharks, and he has been clear that the move was about more than club rugby. He wants to give himself a chance of making a fifth World Cup next year. That is not the mindset of a man winding down for a farewell tour. It is the mindset of someone who still believes the engine is running.
Steve Borthwick has made the selection path obvious enough. Players have to prove themselves in the Prem if they want England recognition, and Lawes is not pretending otherwise. Over the weekend Borthwick named a pre-season England squad and Lawes was not expecting to be included. The work, he knows, starts in club colours, not in the comfort of reputation. That is the whole point of the comeback.
No room for romance
There is something refreshingly blunt about the way Lawes is approaching it. He is not trying to sell a grand farewell, and he is certainly not wrapping himself in the language of entitlement. “If I play well for Sale I’ll give myself an opportunity to play for England,” is the equation, and it is a pretty fair one. So is his attitude to the bigger-picture questions. He says he does not feel nervous. He says he is not too worried about legacy at this point. He would rather come back and fail than leave it too early and spend the rest of his retirement wondering what might have been.
That is probably the most persuasive part of all this. Lawes has four children, knows he is a long time retired, and still believes he can move really well. In other words, this is not vanity. It is belief backed by enough remaining physical confidence to make the idea plausible. And in a sport that often rewards youth by reflex, there is still room for the older player who can show he belongs.
Of course, this is not guaranteed to end with an England recall. It would be silly to pretend otherwise. Selection is ruthless, form matters, and there is a difference between wanting a fifth World Cup and actually getting one. But Lawes has not returned to the Prem just to make up the numbers at Sale Sharks. He has come back with purpose, and that alone makes him worth watching.
For England, the message is simple. If the door is open, Lawes is walking straight at it. He is not asking for sentiment. He is asking for the chance to earn it again. In a summer full of players trying to sell certainty, that might be the most convincing thing of all.
