Danny Care

Club

Harlequins

Position

Scrum-half

Nationality

England

Date of birth

1987-01-02

Birthplace

Leeds, West Yorkshire, England

Height

1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)

Weight

84 kg (13 st 3 lb; 185 lb)

Daniel Stuart Care (born 2 January 1987) is an English rugby union player who plays for Harlequins in the Premiership as a scrum-half.

He made his debut for England in 2008 and has won 84 caps. He previously played for England in several youth age groups as well as England Sevens and England Saxons.

Early career
Care was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. He first played rugby union at age 6, at which point he stopped growing, with his local club in Leeds, West Park Bramhope RUFC (now called West Park Leeds RUFC), although his first love was football. At age 11 he was invited to join the Academy at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club which meant giving up club rugby although he was able to continue playing the game at Prince Henry's Grammar School in Otley.

He helped Prince Henry's win the Under-13 Yorkshire Cup in 2000 but he missed almost all of the next season recovering from a broken leg sustained in a school game.

The following season he was forced to choose between football and rugby union and he asked Sheffield Wednesday to release him from his Academy contract so that he could concentrate on rugby. This was not a decision he took lightly and was made over a number of months after discussions with his family, teachers and local rugby coaches (including youth scout Bobby Walsh) however by the end of the season he had been selected for Yorkshire Schools' Under-15's. This was his first taste of representative rugby which included a man-of-the-match performance in the Roses game against Lancashire at Pontefract. In May 2002 he was part of the West Yorkshire team that won the inaugural Under-15 National 10-a-side Festival with the final being played in the Commonwealth Games stadium in Manchester.

Further honours followed next season with selection for Yorkshire and the North of England before making his debut for England Schools' Under-16s against Wales at Neath in April 2003. By now Care had resumed club rugby with Otley and the season also brought another Yorkshire Cup success at Under-16's with Prince Henry's.

Care's progress led to an invitation to join the Leeds Tykes Academy at the start of the 2003–04 season – a season which ended with Tykes winning the National Under-19 Colts Cup and Care being named as Tykes' Players' Young Player of the Year. At school level Care spent the season playing at fly-half and helped Prince Henry's to success in the Under-18 Yorkshire Cup and a famous victory at Twickenham in the final of the Da