Twenty years separate Lucas Friday and Danny Care.<\/p>\n
Former Harlequins scrum-half Care, 39, played 101 times for England and trotted out against Exeter Chiefs to mark his 395th and final club appearance last May.<\/p>\n
Instead of signing an experienced scrum-half, Quins opted to bring through teenager Friday – who at that stage had only three minutes of top-flight rugby under his belt.<\/p>\n
But it was a fitting passing of the guard as Mike Friday – Lucas’ father and former England sevens coach – played a key role in Care’s early career development.<\/p>\n
“It feels like a full circle moment as Lucas’ father Mike was my mentor from 16-20 in the junior national academy pathway and he picked me to play for England sevens,” Care told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“Mike used to come and do a load of passing and kicking drills with me. He passed on his knowledge to me, fast forward 20 years later and I was doing the same for his son.<\/p>\n
“It was a bit weird but in a nice way, a passing of the torch. It was nice that I could help as this guy’s father had given me so much.<\/p>\n
“In a cathartic way it did play a little bit of a factor in my retirement as I knew you’ve got to let this kid fly now.”<\/p>\n
Diminutive in stature but lightning quick with a bullet pass, the 19-year-old reminds Care of himself as a promising teenager.<\/p>\n
The talent was undeniable but Friday’s willingness to learn shone through as he would wait for senior training to finishing before racing onto the pitch to do extra kicking practice.<\/p>\n
“Post sessions they may not have wanted to do, or maybe had other things to do, but they [Harlequins senior scrum-halves Care and Will Porter] took the time to help develop me,” Friday told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“I always wanted to ask questions and once they engaged back with me, it gave me more confidence. They might not have been so happy with the amount I asked.<\/p>\n
“It would be technical questions on passing and what went well for him [Care] and what didn’t go well.<\/p>\n
“Kicking technique is another thing and finding that consistency.<\/p>\n
“I want to be the best I can in every single skill as I want to master and perfect it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty years separate Lucas Friday and Danny Care. Former Harlequins scrum-half Care, 39, played 101 times for England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-520072","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\/520072","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=520072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}