The former England captain, nicknamed ‘Mad Dog’ for his fearless and relentless playing style, is already impressively confronting his greatest challenge after revealing his motor neurone disease diagnosis
In rugby union, where physicality and bravery are pre-requisites, you have to go some to earn the nickname ‘Mad Dog’. Enter Lewis Moody.
In a sport replete with warriors, the 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning flanker – who this morning announced he has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) – carved out a reputation as the warrior’s warrior.
He is a man who would courageously and relentlessly put his body on the line for club and country – happily sticking his head where others wouldn’t even put their boot – to the extent that even fellow professionals were left in awe.
“He was an absolutely fearless player – one of the best that we've produced,” said current Ireland coach Andy Farrell back in 2012, when his former England team-mate was finally forced into retirement through injury.
“He will be remembered as mad. A fighter who has total disrespect for his own body, who only knows one way. I honestly don't think I've played with another player who is that committed and cared so much for his team-mates as well.”
In an interview with The Times in 2020, Moody conceded: “I was a lunatic on a rugby pitch. I did put myself in harm’s way for the benefit of my team because that was the way I enjoyed playing the game. That was the only way I could be.”
Lewis Moody the rugby player, who won 71 England caps and captained them on 12 occasions, earned respect every time he stepped on the field, while Lewis Moody the human being is beloved off it. You would be hard-pushed to find anyone at any level of rugby with a bad word to say about the 47-year-old, renowned for his warmth and good humour.
As a young journalist, I interviewed Moody on what felt like almost a weekly basis as his role as an ambassador for Land Rover saw him pop up at various locations around the UK on a trophy tour ahead of the 2015 World Cup, attend youth rugby events to help develop the grassroots of the game and promote Prem Rugby’s HITZ programme that used the sport to improve the education and employability of young people.
He was always friendly, generous with his time and happy to share his opinion on whatever the rugby news story of the day was. In simple terms, he is universally acknowledged as a lovely man.
“He is the most wonderful human that we love to his very core,” confirmed former England and Leicester Tigers team-mate Will Greenwood on BBC Radio 5 Live after the announcement of Moody’s MND diagnosis. “It is just tragic news, because he is one of the great guys.
“And I know there is no order to this stuff – how you leave this planet – but you root for the good guys. There is not a nasty bone in his body, he is the most optimistic human you can hope to find.”
Greenwood went on to state that Moody had an ability on the pitch to “just turn a switch and be the most ferocious competitor”, which will be the enduring memory when rugby fans picture the blond-haired back-rower in his prime.
The blurb for his own autobiography, fittingly titled Mad Dog - An Englishman: My Life in Rugby, says that Moody was “known for his near-suicidal fashion of playing the game” and there are endless stories of his commitment to the cause.
He once played through a stress fracture of his leg at Leicester and battled a litany of other injuries – from knee ligament and Achilles tendon issues to foot, shoulder, hip and eye problems – throughout his career.
“Having played with him, knowing how he played on through injury, showed just what a tough bloke he was,” said Farrell after his retirement. “I don't think we actually knew the half of what he was going through at times.”
By the end, Moody was basically held together by medical tape, to the extent that the second people mentioned in the acknowledgements section of his autobiography (after his mum and dad) are the “cast of hundreds, maybe thousands… of physios and medics who have helped me out of my gloom and back on to the rugby pitch and the surgeons who have rebuilt me over many years.”
The ‘Mad Dog’ persona also ensured he never backed down, whether that meant becoming the first England player to be sent off at Twickenham when he got into a fight with Alesana Tuilagi after a mid-air tackle on Mark Cueto during an easy 40-3 England win over Samoa in 2005 or sparking a training-ground scuffle with team-mate and friend Martin Johnson at Leicester when he abandoned a tackle pad and started throwing himself into tackles in 2004.
“Tempers flared and ‘Johnno’ and I had a little coming together,” admitted Moody later. “He gave me a little dink and I gave him a little dink – but his hurt a lot more!”
He won three Six Nations titles in addition to the 2003 World Cup with England, where he came off the bench in the final against Australia and claimed the ball at the back of the lineout in the crucial passage of play that ended with Jonny Wilkinson’s match-winning drop-goal.
He became the youngest player to appear in a league match for Leicester when he made his debut in 1996 at 18 years and 94 days, before helping them to seven Premiership titles and two European Champions Cups during a storied career that saw him tour with the British and Irish Lions in 2005 and ended with 34 appearances for Bath between 2010 and 2012.
He is no stranger to health challenges, having been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease ulcerative colitis in 2005 and keeping it secret while continuing to play top-level rugby, but now faces his biggest yet after joining the growing list of rugby players afflicted by MND.
Rugby league legend Rob Burrow and Lions icon Doddie Weir both died with the currently incurable disease over the past couple of years, while ex-Gloucester and Leicester lock Ed Slater was diagnosed with MND in July 2022.
There is currently no definitively proven, causal link between playing rugby at an elite level and the development of MND, although a 2022 study by the University of Glasgow involving 400 ex-Scotland players found that former international rugby union players were 15 times more likely to contract the disease.
Researchers at Durham University in 2024 also found rugby players who have suffered multiple concussions have biological differences that may make them more prone to developing MND and while the MND Association acknowledges there is a "correlation" between contact sports and MND, they point out that studies have not shown the sports directly cause the condition.
For his part, Moody knows what could lie ahead, with the degenerative nature of the muscle-wasting disease having been shown in candid documentaries filmed by Burrow and Weir before their deaths. Rather than wallowing, he is choosing to live for the moment.
“The future is uncertain at the minute, so that’s why we’re just focussed on now,” said Moody when revealing his diagnosis. “It's not that I don't understand where it's going. We understand that. But there is absolutely a reluctance to look the future in the face for now.
“There is no cure and that is why you have to be so militantly focused on just embracing and enjoying everything.”
During the announcement of his diagnosis, Moody candidly opened up about the heartbreaking conversations with wife Annie and their two teenage sons, Dylan (17) and Ethan (15), since the diagnosis a fortnight ago and also signalled his intention for The Lewis Moody Foundation, which for the past 12 years has supported children and adults affected by brain tumours, to additionally focus on MND.
He is already using the pain of this diagnosis to do some good.
It is no surprise that the man who was the epitome of bravery on the rugby pitch is now demonstrating even more off it.
Category: General Sports
