CLUB Gloucester Rugby
POSITION Flanker
Andy Hazell has won six England caps, the most recent against Scotland two years ago and played five times for the Saxons. He scored a maiden Test try off the bench in the 39-7 win over Italy in March 2005, three years after a two-try performance against the Azzurri’s A team at Northampton brought him to prominence. He had played in both midweek games on England’s tour of North America in 2001, scoring a try in the first match against British Columbia.
He was chosen for England’s senior tour of New Zealand and Australia in June 2003, having helped Gloucester to finish at the top of the Zurich Premiership. He previously captained the South West Under-21s and was a member of the highly successful England side at that level. Played for Old Richians and Gloucester Old Boys before making his Gloucester debut in 1997-98 and last season pulled off more than 200 tackles in the Guinness Premiership – an outstanding achievement.
Did you know?
Andy was a goalkeeper for his Severn Vale School team and Hucclecote FC before he switched to rugby at the age of 12. He jokes: “I played in goal because I was not good enough to play anywhere else.” His superstition when he has a bad injury is to throw away the kit that he was wearing at the time. He once ran out of the tunnel at Kingsholm, tore his toe ligaments when his feet tangled with the matting and needed to have his big toe reconstructed which cost him three months out of the game. Andy Deacon, the former Gloucester prop, is the player he most admires and the one from whom he has learned the most. Music is his passion. As a teenager, he ran a mobile disco and still has all the equipment and thousands of CDs.
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