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Lewis Moody celebrates with England teammates in 2003. PA Archive
sentimental

Lewis Moody: I kept my World Cup winners' medal in a Sainsburys bag

The former England flanker is hoping to display his medal and MBE properly now that he has retired.

FORMER LEICESTER TIGERS and England flanker Lewis Moody has confessed that he kept his World Cup winners’ medal in a plastic shopping bag.

Moody, who retired from rugby this summer, revealed to Total Rugby Radio that he is currently storing the medal that he won with England in 2003 in a Sainsburys bag.

“It’s in a bag somewhere,” he said. “All of my medals are with my mum until a while ago. I couldn’t actually remember where any of them where.”

Moody won seven English Premiership titles with Leicester as well as three Anglo-Welsh Cups and two Heineken Cups. He won two Six Nations with England as well as the World Cup in 2003, for which he earned another medal – an MBE.

“It’s strange isn’t it?”, he reflected. “I’ve been very lucky to have a successful career but what do you do with all those bits and pieces of memorabilia - do you put them on a wall? I don’t know.

“At the minute I’ve not decided. Maybe, when it’s coming up to the 10-year (World Cup) reunion I’ll get the shirt and put it in a frame.

“They were in a Sainsburys bag for a few years.”

Sainsburys bags: Good enough for Lewis Moody and Cher Lloyd. (Credit: John Phillips/EMPICS)

Moody also recalled a clattering tackle he made on Australia out-half Quade Cooper in 2010.

He said, “The game before I gave him too much space, and he’s got such elusive feet, that I missed about six tackles on him. I was furious with myself.” Moody added:

I had a small word with the defensive coach, Mike Ford and said ‘give me a chance to get back at this guy’. From the first lineout I was targeted with going and getting him.

“I felt much better, anyway, about myself afterwards.”

Read: Green pastures: Ian Humphreys on life with London Irish

Read: Brian O’Driscoll rules out retirement and targets World Cup success