Former England international Ben Youngs had heart surgery after Leicester Tigers training session collapse

Ben Youngs, England's most-capped player of all time, collapsed during an open training session with his club. The Leicester Tigers scrum-half was diagnosed with an irregular and abnormally fast heartbeat and has since gone under the knife to have a pacemaker fitted. Despite the worrying and recurring episodes, Youngs is grateful that the medical team were able to catch it when they did.

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Ex-England international Ben Youngs revealed that he was forced to have heart surgery this year after a worrying "episode" during a Leicester Tigers training session.

The scrum-half was diagnosed with arrhythmia and supraventricular tachycardia – an irregular and abnormally fast heartbeat – but was unaware of the condition for most of his life.

Talking on the For the Love of Rugby podcast with co-host and club-mate Dan Coles, the 34-year-old explained the incident that had him fearing for his life.

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"We had this open training session at Leicester, and I said I was doing fitness, and basically I collapsed," said Youngs.

"Well, not collapsed, but I had to stop and lay down as my heart was pounding away, and the rain was hitting me in the face, and I sort of rolled my head to the side and looked at all these admiring fans - 30 of them - that were all packed out in the main stand at Leicester.

"And I thought: 'This is it, this is how I'm gonna go'."

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That was not the first time Youngs, who holds the all-time England men’s caps record with 127, had experienced such an incident.

But thankfully, the scrum-half is confident that with a pacemaker fitted, it is unlikely to happen again and that he will be ready to start the new season in September.

Youngs added: "The club have been amazing, as they so often are with anything like this. I got checked the first time it happened, [then] a second time it happened again.

“It’s a good thing this happened during the off-season, because I can get fixed and the recovery time is not long at all. I’ll be fine for the start of the season.

"I am on the mend, I am recovering. I'll be fine for the start of the season.

"There is a 90% success rate, so I should not suffer now. My ticker should be all good and it won't suddenly kick in and go mental."

Youngs was absent for Leicester Tigers from late April onwards but returned to action as a substitute for the Barbarians against Fiji in June.

In spite of the worrying episodes, Youngs said he was glad that it happened while he was still a professional player.

"Take rugby aside, it’s probably a good thing," he said. "It’s been caught now, but imagine in 10 years’ time, you’re just having a kick-around in the family with the kids or the grandkids and something like that happens.

"It’s sort of panic stations, whereas actually, we’re fortunate to be exposed to good medics and it’s been able to be looked at now for a long-term health thing."

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