{"id":165458,"date":"2025-11-06T05:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/165458\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T05:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:12:14","slug":"my-mums-irish-she-was-always-pushing-me-to-play-for-ireland-joe-heyes-on-easy-decision-to-play-for-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/165458\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My mum\u2019s Irish . . . she was always pushing me to play for Ireland\u2019 \u2013 Joe Heyes on \u2018easy\u2019 decision to play for England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heyes started last Saturday\u2019s victory over Australia and will be in action when Fiji visit Allianz Stadium in this weekend\u2019s second autumn international to continue his breakthrough 2025.<\/p>\n

But the Leicester prop might have turned his back on England had his mum Rachel, a former Ireland basketball player, succeeded in persuading him to choose green over white.<\/p>\n

As an emerging tighthead at Leicester, the opportunity to learn from Tigers and England great Cole \u2013 who retired last season aged 38 \u2013 made the decision a formality.<\/p>\n

\"Heyes<\/p>\n

Heyes has spoken of his admiration for former Leicester and England prop Dan Cole (Adam Davy\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum\u2019s Irish and my mum and dad divorced, so my dad wasn\u2019t in the house. It was an Irish household in Nottinghamshire and she was always pushing me to play for Ireland,\u201d Heyes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019ve chosen the right side and she\u2019s incredibly proud of me. I might have upset my mum in the process, but my dad\u2019s English, I\u2019m English and I was born here, so it was an incredibly easy decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started playing rugby when I was 15, came to Leicester and from day one it was Dan Cole \u2013 I was infatuated with that man.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan was the guy. Starting tighthead for England and Tigers, you\u2019d just get excited every time someone dropped a ball because it was like, \u2018Coley\u2019s going to scrum now\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a young tighthead prop going through the Tigers system, it was mostly about scrummaging and defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two things are my standard now \u2013 if I go well in the scrum and in defence, then I\u2019ve had a good game. That\u2019s what Dan brought and that\u2019s what Tigers respect and want from their props.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether Heyes starts or finishes against Fiji depends on if England continue with the \u2018bomb squad\u2019 tactic of stacking the bench with forwards after the introduction of five British and Irish forwards around the half-hour mark turned the tide against the Wallabies.<\/p>\n

Head coach Steve Borthwick names his team on Thursday, at which point he will know if full-back Freddie Steward and wing Tom Roebuck have recovered from their respective hand and ankle injuries.<\/p>\n

If they are ruled out, Marcus Smith is favourite to start in the number 15 jersey with Henry Arundell the front-runner to come in for Roebuck in what would be his first England appearance since the 2023 World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heyes started last Saturday\u2019s victory over Australia and will be in action when Fiji visit Allianz Stadium in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[95318,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-165458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-autumn-internationals","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115501042732262013","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}