Ellis Genge has revealed he battled through incredible pain to take the field for England last season after suffering from a bout of severe tonsillitis.
The Bristol Bears loosehead prop, who is widely regarded to be the best player in the world in his specialist position, has now sacrificed a family holiday in the off-season to get himself back in shape after going under the knife to remove the troublesome tonsils.
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Speaking to The Telegraph, Genge, who has a reputation as one of the game's tough men, explained he was on the verge of having to pull out of England’s 20-10 Six Nations win over Wales in Cardiff due to the severity of his illness, but managed to play nearly an hour at the Principality Stadium.
He said: “I felt like I was going to die. I get chronic tonsillitis anyway but usually around November. This time it came in late February, the month of my birthday - what a present that was!
“Steve [Borthwick, the England head coach] asked: ‘Can you do it?’ It was too close to the game to pull out. But I had all sorts - enough diclofenac to put an elephant to sleep. All the meds, cracked on. I was so ill after the match that I was shaking.”
Genge had a disappointing end to his first season back at Bristol having rejoined his hometown club from Leicester Tigers, forced to sit out the final few games of the season after being cited and then banned for a high tackle against Sale Sharks.
At the end of a battering campaign players regularly check in with a surgeon for ‘tidy-up’ ops, normally on shoulders or knees, but for 28-year-old Genge it was his tonsils.
He said: “We agreed that when I got an extended period of time off I’d get my tonsils out. It was a rough 12 days [of recovery]. I wanted to go away after but obviously, with the World Cup coming up I felt like I had to train and put on the weight and muscle that I had lost during that 12-day period of not being able to eat. I don’t mind making the sacrifice now; if I get to go to another World Cup then it will all be worth it.”
Genge, who has been getting back up to his fighting weight working out at the Bears’ High-Performance centre, was one of three Bristol players named in England’s first 28-man Rugby World Cup training squad this week, joining Kyle Sinckler and Harry Randall in the week-long camp at Pennyhill Park this week and is thoroughly expected to be packing down in the number one jersey for the national side come September 9 when Borthwick’s side kick-off their tournament against Argentina.
Having lost 30-29 to Argentina at Twickenham in the Autumn last time out during a series of inconsistent performances, England head to France sitting sixth in World Rugby's standings, going into the tournament under the radar. Genge said: “I hear people speak about who’s going to win the World Cup and obviously there’s France, Ireland, South Africa, Eddie [Jones] going to Australia, all these names get chucked in. It doesn’t seem to be England! That’s never a bad thing; never a bad thing to be the underdog.”
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