{"id":193077,"date":"2025-10-06T09:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T09:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/193077\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T09:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T09:36:08","slug":"lewis-moody-former-england-rugby-captain-says-hes-been-diagnosed-with-motor-neuron-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/193077\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Moody: Former England rugby captain says he\u2019s been diagnosed with motor neuron disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Former England rugby<\/a> captain and World Cup winner Lewis Moody<\/a> has been diagnosed with motor neuron disease<\/a>, he announced on Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n The 47-year-old, who was part of England\u2019s 2003 Rugby World Cup winning team, learnt of his diagnosis two weeks ago, he told the BBC while sitting alongside his wife, Annie.\n <\/p>\n

\n He first noticed a \u201cshoulder weakness\u201d a couple of months ago that didn\u2019t go away even after a course of physical therapy, he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n After being referred to a shoulder specialist, he underwent an MRI scan that identified signs of MND, often referred to as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) since almost 90% of MND patients have this form of the disease.\n <\/p>\n

\"Moody<\/p>\n

\n There is currently no cure for MND, which eventually causes muscles to weaken, affecting a person\u2019s ability to walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s never me that I feel sad for,\u201d Moody said, his voice catching. \u201cIt\u2019s sadness around having to tell my mum, having to tell the boys. That was pretty heartbreaking.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Moody has two sons, Dylan, 17, and Ethan, 15.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe sat on the couch in tears, Ethan and Dylan both wrapped up in each other, and then the dog jumped over and started licking the tears off our faces, which was rather sweet,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe only good news for me is it\u2019s me; it\u2019s not Annie or the boys. I know it\u2019s something I\u2019ll be able to manage, and they\u2019ll be able to cope with it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n On the rugby pitch, Moody was known as \u201cMad Dog\u201d \u2014 a nickname that epitomized his dogged fearlessness, especially as a defender.\n <\/p>\n

\n He enjoyed success at both club and international level, winning seven Premiership titles with Leicester Tigers as well as 71 caps for England and three for the British and Irish Lions, an invitational team reserved for the best players from the British Isles.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt came as a fairly sizeable shock to all of us,\u201d Moody said. \u201cIn myself, I feel absolutely fine. You\u2019re given this piece of information, you\u2019re given this diagnosis of MND or ALS and it\u2019s a huge piece of information to absorb and deal with and we\u2019re rightly quite emotional about it.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut it\u2019s so strange because I feel like nothing is wrong. I don\u2019t feel ill, I don\u2019t feel unwell.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Several other rugby players have been diagnosed with the disease, including Doddie Weir<\/a> and Rob Burrow<\/a>, whose relentless campaigns before they died raised much money and awareness to search for treatments.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNaively or not, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s right or wrong in this situation because we\u2019ve never been through it, there\u2019s a reluctance, maybe an avoidance, to look into the future,\u201d Moody said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that I don\u2019t understand where it\u2019s going. We understand that. But there is absolutely a reluctance to look the future in the face for now while things are OK.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe fact that I haven\u2019t been able to reach out to those people that are suffering with it, I feel selfish that I\u2019ve not been able to accept that and look into the future. But there\u2019ll be a time when I can and when I can process that. And I would like to as well.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England rugby captain and World Cup winner Lewis Moody has been diagnosed with motor neuron disease, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-193077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}