There’s nothing stopping you from doing what you want to do in this country.’ ‘A lot of people look for it nowadays, and if you look for it you can find it. You’ll get different outcomes but as long as people have the same opportunity, that’s fine.’ĭid Lawes experience barriers in front of those opportunities as a child? ‘Not at all,’ he says.
‘It’s just the fact that nowadays if that was the case (an all-white team), people would say things. ‘Having said that if they were all white, upper-educated kids and were the best at rugby then they should all play. ‘I never think somebody should get a position that’s not warranted because of their colour - whether they are white, black, Asian or whatever - it just so happens that the best rugby players in England at the time were from a range of places and areas. ‘In a way it was pot luck,’ he reflects on the diversity of the group. Lawes last year with his children Nelly, on his shoulders, Teddy, right, and twins Otto and Hugo It was a squad celebrated as truly representative of modern England, one that showed the right sort of progress too for Lawes, the son of a Jamaican dad and an English mum, for it was not calculated. There were the Tongan-born brothers Mako and Billy Vunipola, Joe Cokanasiga - or ‘Fiji Joe’ - who has lived in Brunei and Germany, Manu Tuilagi from Samoa, Lewis Ludlam with links to Palestine, Egypt and Guyana, Jonathan Joseph with a father from the Grenadines, Anthony Watson and Maro Itoje whose ancestors came from West Africa and Kyle Sinckler and Lawes with Caribbean heritage. In the 31-man squad that made it to the World Cup final, 10 could be classed as being from BAME backgrounds - it was double the number of 2015 and in 2003 Jason Robinson was the sole member of that group. That brings the conversation round to the diversity of the England team that journeyed to Japan. ‘It’s good to tell kids that you don’t have to believe everything people are saying, that you can only do things if you come from a certain place or look a certain way.’ The lock forward has eyes trained on a future where he can make a difference outside rugby
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