England’s Joe Heyes: ‘People try to fit into moulds, be something they’re not. Screw that’

For some people the road to the top is painfully long and winding. Joe Heyes used to be a player whose dreams of making England’s matchday squad were constantly dashed. Driving home from Bagshot, having been omitted yet again, he would listen to Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues – “I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when …” – and wonder if the hardship and sacrifice would ever be worth it. And now? Less than two years later he is suddenly the most important player in England. The national management have already lost two injured tightheads in Will Stuart and Asher Opoku-Fordjour plus the loosehead prop Fin Baxter. If they had enough cotton wool England would be wrapping the now...