#4. Austin Healey
OWENS SAID: “Definitely. I only caught him towards the end of his career, thankfully. A wonderfully talented player and a very good pundit now, but he always had plenty say and quickly assumed I didn’t like him. He’s actually blocked me on Twitter, but I don’t think I’m the only one.”
Austin Healey facts:
- He has 51 England caps and 2 Lions caps
- Healey appeared on BBC gameshow, Mastermind, on 4 January 2013. His specialist subject was Everton Football Club
- He is a famously competitive and “outspoken” character, gaining the nickname “The Leicester Lip”
- Healey’s autobiography, Lions, Tigers and Roses, was published by Oxford University Press in 2001
#5. Maro Itoje (England)
OWENS SAID: “Itoje is someone who plays right on the edge. That is what makes him such a great player. He must be so difficult to play against but he’s also difficult to referee and I mean that with the utmost respect.”
BARNES SAID: “The hardest players are the best players,”
Maro Itoje facts:
- As a schoolboy, Itoje played several sports including basketball, football, rugby and athletics, representing England at U17 level in shot put
- Maro got a rugby scholarship to London Harrow school when he was 11. He then studied for a Politics degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in Bloomsbury, London at the same time as starting his rugby career
- He is also the cousin of Bath’s loosehead-prop Beno Obano
- The lock was born Oghenemaro Miles Itoje in Camden, London on 28 October 1994 to Nigerian parents