Club Career
Ellis first played rugby union as a 6-year-old with the South Leicester club. He studied at Bushloe High School and later Leicester Grammar School, where he represented Leicester Schools and the Midlands at every age level.
He spent a year with the Wigston club before he finally joined the Leicester Tigers Academy where he combined playing with further education at De Montfort University. He worked his way through the Tigers lower teams and continued his representative career, playing for both the England U19 and U21 sides. He has also featured in the England Sevens squad along with his team mate Louis Deacon.
In August 2001, he made his first team Tigers debut in the Orange Cup game in Toulouse. Ellis went on to score a superb individual try that helped defeat Llanelli in the Heineken Cup semi-final at Nottingham. He was named Tigers’ Players Young Player of the Year for the 2001–2 season. In Leicester's 2002 Heineken Cup quarter final, Ellis scored the only try of the game, breaking away from a ruck and sliding over on the wet ground.
He finally established himself as a regular in the No. 9 spot during the 2003–04 season, making 19 appearances and helping Tigers come back from a poor start and a turbulent midseason to reach the Zurich Wild Card final.
Ellis suffered knee ligament damage against Bristol on the 5th May 2007 in the Guinness Premiership semi-final play-off. He played an influential role in the Tigers' domestic double success, but the injury meant him missing out on the Premiership and Heineken Cup finals.
The Heineken Cup semi-final against Cardiff Blues resulted in a historic sudden death kicking competition. Fortunately, the shoot-out ended before Ellis's turn came up – though it was a close run thing, as either he or Tom Croft were to follow Jordan Crane. Although the Tigers fell at the final hurdle of the Heineken Cup, they won the 2008-09 Guinness Premiership final, which Ellis did not feature in.
Ellis started the 2009/10 season as first-choice scrum-half for Leicester, but unfortunately suffered an injury in training, which left him out of the game for a significant part of the season. He returned to play in the Guinness A league, and helped the Tigers A team to victory.
His last game for the senior side came against Northampton Saints in the LV= Cup.
Read more about this topic: Harry Ellis
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