Leicester Tigers’ Joe Heyes Driven by England Omission for International Comeback

Leicester Tigers prop Joe Heyes is channeling the disappointment of not being selected for an England recall into intensified effort, aiming for his re-entry into the international squad. The 25-year-old has featured in the starting lineup for six of Leicester’s seven Premiership matches this season under Michael Cheika. This represents a greater number of starts than he achieved in the final six months of the 2023-24 season across all tournaments. Despite Heyes’ strong performance at the start of the current campaign with the successful Tigers team, it was insufficient to secure him a spot in the England squad for the autumn internationals. However, he did play for the England A side in a match against Australia A in November. Heyes acknowledged that being passed over by national team head coach Steve Borthwick—with whom he secured the Premiership title at Tigers in 2022—was challenging to accept. Nevertheless, he chose not to dwell on the decision, instead redirecting his focus towards his training regimen. “It came with a lot of hurt because that’s where I want to be,” he told BBC Radio Leicester. “I just tried to spin it on its head to make the best of it. For me, it’s given me a good opportunity to keep on working.” Heyes last received one of his seven full international caps in November 2022. Despite this, he was included in the England squad that toured during the summer. Following his exclusion from the Test matches against Japan and New Zealand, the prop indicated that the England coaching staff provided him with significant feedback regarding areas for improvement, essential for him to solidify his position at the international level. “At the end of the summer tour in New Zealand I had a very honest conversation with a lot of the England coaches, and there was elements of the game that I needed to improve on,” Hayes said. “And that was round my tackle, just becoming more dominant and personally doing a lot more gym work and becoming a bit more of a force.” “Instead of just getting by in games I wanted to go out there and put a marker on a lot of things that are my roles, and that’s the scrum, the maul, the defence, the ruck.” Heyes, who was in the starting lineup for Leicester’s initial Champions Cup loss to Bordeaux on Sunday, stated that the beginning of the season has been focused on “laying the foundations” to develop into the ‘force’ desired by England’s management. He further commented, “Maybe it was a bit of a wake-up call, and that is what I’m trying to do at the moment.”