Courtney Lawes’s former England team-mate Joe Worsley has told The i Paper he has seen first-hand why Lawes can still do a World Cup job for his country next year – even at the age of 38.
The 37-year-old Lawes is returning to the Prem with Sale Sharks next season, with hopes of a World Cup spot with England in Australia 17 months from now.
The 105-cap legend went into international retirement when he quit Northampton Saints after their league title in 2024, taking a lucrative contract at Brive in France’s second division, the Pro D2.
But that masterplan has now changed, and Worsley, who was Brive’s defence coach in Lawes’s first season there, and shared the England changing room with Lawes in the latter’s early international days, says the returning hero possesses qualities different from anyone else available to the red-rose boss Steve Borthwick.
Lawes is England’s seventh most capped men’s player of all-time and last played internationally in the 2023 World Cup semi-final (Photo: Getty)“He’s got an incredible gift,” Worsley, 48, says of Lawes. “His ball-stealing and jackallings and his line-out are the super skills he has.
“To have a back row/second row who can do what he can do in the line-out and then steal as many balls he steals, on top of making important tackles and being good defensively, and a good pair of hands in terms of running at the line, if he has the right kind of people around him… I wouldn’t say there’s anyone in the England team at the moment who fits that profile.
“If you are looking at an aerial back-rower, Ollie Chessum is not really a stealer. He carries all right, but his hands are nothing like Courts’. Alex Coles can do it but his ball-stealing is nothing like Courts’.
“I think he [Lawes] can easily fill that role, which gives your World Cup squad quite a bit of flexibility, which is important. I don’t know if he has had any contact with Steve Borthwick. But I’d imagine he’s been told that if he hits the kind of form he was hitting before he left, then he’ll be considered.”
Back in the Prem! Courtney Lawes signs for Sale Sharks! #GuinnessM6N #Since1883 pic.twitter.com/Up7viWshRO
— Guinness Men's Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby) April 7, 2026Worsley, who is part of a venture showing Pro D2 action on YouTube, says there have been pros and cons to Lawes playing at that level.
“After two years he is probably a better player from learning bits and bobs he wouldn’t have learnt in England,” says the former Wasps flanker, who was in England’s 2003 World Cup-winning squad. “I wish I’d come over for a year or two when I was playing, because it certainly would have left me a better player.
“But he’s been playing for two seasons in a league where the ball-in-play is a bit slower, and playing for quite an arm-wrestling, old-school team.
“He’ll need to get used again to more shape, more structured play, running off nine and 10. In his ruck decision-making, in France it is more physical, more varied, with much more contesting and physicality. So there’ll be a period of adaption. But he’s experienced, and as soon as he gets in an environment where it’s moving around, he will catch up.”
Lawes left English rugby in 2024 after 17 years at Northampton Saints (Photo: PA)What about Lawes’s physical state? He has made 17 starts for Brive this season, on top of 22 in his debut campaign, and Worsley says: “He hasn’t been flogged, by any stretch. This league has allowed him time off. It’s a shame Brive has been a little chaotic. It’s better when something’s settled that you go into; a clear gameplan, not deviating every week.”
Sale Sharks will hope to provide that, and their director of rugby Alex Sanderson said on Tuesday: “It’s a good fit for him [Lawes] and his aspiration to get back into the World Cup team. We wouldn’t have signed him if he just wanted a paycheck. That’s not what I’m seeing.
“Dorian West [Sale’s assistant coach], who was his first forwards coach [at Northampton], was the first person to contact him, and had a very honest conversation about his aspirations and our aspirations and how the two were aligned. He has clearly still got the ability and experience to play some great rugby over the next season, if not the next couple.”
Sanderson likens Lawes to France’s Charles Ollivon, in his “hybrid” ability across the back five. “Plus he’s captained England and knows what it’s like to play and win on the biggest stage.”
Lawes’s line-out skills would be invaluable to England (Photo: Getty)As for his age, there is an England example in second row Simon Shaw who was 38 when he played at the 2011 World Cup – with the then 22-year-old Lawes as a team-mate.
“I remember Courts’ first England training session,” Worsley says with a chuckle. “A lot skinnier then, but he cleaned up at the line-out – a few of the boys were a bit pissed off because he was trying too hard, I think.
“He has got great coordination, in those long limbs. His anticipation and the speed he locks onto the ball at is phenomenal. I didn’t appreciate it fully until I worked with him. If you have got three decent stealers in your team, you can create so many opportunities – provided the defence is giving them decent opportunities.”
Worsley also bumped into Toulon’s ex-New Zealand centre Ma’a Nonu recently. “He’s blowing Courts out of the water, still playing at 43! It’s incredible. I don’t know how they are doing it.”
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