Simon Shaw

Simon Shaw

Full name	Simon Dalton Shaw
Date of birth	(1973-09-01) 1 September 1973
Place of birth	Nairobi, Kenya
Height	2.03 m (6 ft 8 in)
Weight	122 kg (19 st 3 lb)[1]
School	Runnymede College Godalming College
University	University of the West of England
Rugby union career
Playing career
Position	Lock
Youth clubs
Cranleigh RFC
Professional / senior clubs
Years	Club / team	Caps	(points)
1990–1997 1997–2011 2011–	Bristol London Wasps Toulon	306	(128)
National team(s)
Years	Club / team	Caps	(points)
1996– 1997/2005/2009	England British and Irish Lions Barbarian F.C.	71 2	(10) (0)

Simon Dalton Shaw MBE (born 1 September 1973) is an English rugby union player who plays at lock for Toulon and England.

Biography

born 1 September 1973 in Nairobi, Kenya.

At 2.03 m (6 ft 8 in), he is one of the tallest men to play for England.^[2] Shaw has represented England at various levels including students and Under-21s. He played for Bristol at 17. This was despite not taking up the game seriously until he was 16, just after his family had moved to England from Spain. He was educated at Runnymede College, in Madrid and at Godalming College in Surrey. He also played for Cranleigh Rugby Club in his younger years, and often returns to train with the youth teams.

Club career

Shaw played for Bristol at the age of 17. He joined London Wasps in 1997. Wasps won the Tetley's Bitter Cup in 1999 and retained it the following season with a victory over the Northampton Saints.^[3] Playing against Bath in August 2000, Shaw became the only lock in the Premiership to have scored a drop goal.^[4]

In the 2002–03 Zurich Premiership Shaw won the Premiership for the first time, defeating Gloucester in the final.^[5] That season Shaw also won his first European silverware with victory against Bath in the 2002-03 Parker Pen Challenge Cup.^[6] The 2003-04 Zurich Premiership season saw Wasps retain their Premiership crown^[7] and win the 2003-04 Heineken Cup, their first Heineken Cup title.^[8]

The 2004–05 season saw Wasps win the Premiership for a third season in a row.^[9] The following season Wasps defeated the Scarlets to win the Powergen Cup.^[10]

Wasps defeated Leicester Tigers in the final of the 2006–07 Heineken Cup to become European Champions for the second time.^[11]

The following 2007–08 season saw Wasps defeat Leicester Tigers in a final again to regain the Premiership title.^[12]

In May 2008, playing against Leeds Carnegie in the last match of the regular season, Shaw became the first player ever to play in 200 Premiership matches.^[13]

In November 2011, Shaw decided to finish his career overseas and signed for French club, RC Toulonnais.

International career

He won his first England cap against Italy in 1996.^[14] The following year Shaw was picked for the successful 1997 British Lions tour to South Africa. A spate of injuries and Wasps' indifferent form in his first season at the club cost him his England place and although he regained his place in the England squad for the following summer's tour, he was forced to withdraw with a long-standing back injury.

During the 2000 Six Nations Championship, he had to step in for the injured Martin Johnson. He earned his 20th cap during the 2003 Six Nations Championship, a tournament which saw England win the Grand Slam. Shaw played in all three 2003 Rugby World Cup warm up matches. He was not named in the original 30-man squad but was flown out to Australia due to an injury to Danny Grewcock, earning him an MBE as part of the World Cup winning team. He keeps this in a drawer as he feels he didn't "win" it as he never played in a test.^[2] Shaw was called up to the squad for the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand after Irish lock Malcolm O'Kelly aggravated a groin injury in training.^[15]

Shaw was selected as a member of the England 2007 Rugby World Cup squad.^[16] Shaw played the full 80 minutes in the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final.^[17]

In recognition of his continued good form with club and country, Shaw was selected for the 2009 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa.^[18] This made him the oldest person to ever be selected and play for a Lions team. In South Africa he was awarded his first Lions cap on his third tour when he was selected to start in the second test against the Springboks at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria and he put in one of the most outstanding performances by a British and Irish lock in a test match, with his performance subsequently earning him man of the match.^[19] During the third test in Johannesburg he was yellow-carded for dirty play when he knee-dropped Fourie du Preez.^[20] In 2004 he was red-carded for a similar offence against the All Blacks.^[21]

In August 2011 he was selected as part of England's 30-man squad for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.^[22]

In 2011, Simon Shaw became a director of Rugby Hospitality company Set Piece Events.

References

External links

• England Rugby profile
• Wasps Profile
• Premiership profile
• Scrum.com statistics
• Simon Shaw photo by sportingheroes.net
• Simon Shaw's Rugby Hospitality company