{"id":420848,"date":"2026-02-12T00:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420848\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T00:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:43:09","slug":"england-star-apologises-to-wales-international-and-says-i-didnt-mean-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420848\/","title":{"rendered":"England star apologises to Wales international and says ‘I didn’t mean it’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Borthwick’s side dominated proceedings as they thumped Wales 48-7 in their Six Nations opener<\/p>\n

Heyes (centre) admits he apologised to one Wales player after Saturday’s match<\/p>\n

England prop Joe Heyes admits he apologised to his Leicester Tigers team-mate Nicky Smith after getting the better of the Welshman in their Six Nations<\/a> opener last weekend.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old tighthead went head-to-head with his fellow Tiger at the Allianz Stadium and came out on top as Steve Borthwick’s side dominated proceedings for the full 80 minutes. A totally one-sided affair, the match was over as a contest after 20 minutes, with the hosts running in seven tries on their way to a 48-7 victory.<\/p>\n

Wales’ task was made far more difficult by their own lack of discipline and they conceded 16 penalties on a nightmare afternoon which saw four visiting players receive yellow cards.<\/p>\n

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The first of those cards was shown to Smith just 16 minutes into the match, with referee Pierre Brousset losing patience with Wales’ rapidly climbing penalty count as the loosehead came in from the side.<\/p>\n

While the 58-cap international returned to the field to see out the first half, he was replaced by Rhys Carre 10 minutes after the break.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the match, Heyes admitted he felt “incredibly awkward” coming up against Smith, revealing he tried to avoid making eye contact with his club teammate throughout the game as his side cruised to victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had one of those bad days with Nicky Smith three years ago. It was a bit of a doom spiral and you don\u2019t have the time to fix something on the run,” he told LeicestershireLive.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s actually a good guy and we\u2019re really close friends now. It felt incredibly awkward because now I know him, I was trying to avoid eye contact for the whole game.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the game, I gave him a hug and you say \u2018sorry for what I did, I didn\u2019t mean it\u2019.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Image: Harry Trump\/Huw Evans Agency)<\/p>\n

Ahead of the match at Twickenham, Heyes had sung Smith’s praises, describing him as a “quality player” as he recalled being put through the wringer by the Wales international earlier in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just said goodbye in the changing rooms,\u201d Heyes told The Independent<\/a> following Leicester’s win over Harlequins in the Gallagher PREM last month.<\/p>\n

“That was a bit awkward. I didn’t know whether to hug or strangle him. We know where we’re going but we’ll keep it professional and try not to have any domestic conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a bad experience against Nicky three or four years ago and I was yellow-carded,” he added. “I was like, \u2018I’ve got him here\u2019 but he would just pop his way back out of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has an unbelievable ability to go forward. Around the field as well, people don’t see it. He’ll chop everything, he’ll get over the ball. He’s a quality player. I think every prop has a bad day, and I’ve had a couple, but that was probably one of my bad days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ensure our latest sport headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate<\/a> or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Borthwick’s side dominated proceedings as they thumped Wales 48-7 in their Six Nations opener Heyes (centre) admits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7166,5903,43326,101,56,54,55,9015],"class_list":["post-420848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-england-rugby-union-team","tag-rugby","tag-six-nations","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wales-rugby-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}