England International
With his switch to rugby union, he controversially decided to play for England (due to the fact he could only play for the New Zealand national side if he played in Super 12) rather than New Zealand. Although he was born in New Zealand, he qualified for England through his Liverpudlian grandfather.
He won his first England cap as a replacement against France in the 2002 Six Nations Championship, but has only managed to win a handful of caps since then, mostly during the 2004 Six Nations Championship, coming off the bench in Rome and at Murrayfield. He was also considered Man of the Match for England A against France A in March 2004 – with five penalties and a conversion.
He excelled for the England Sevens side and was a member of the 2002 Commonwealth Games and 2006 Commonwealth Games squads, winning a silver medal in 2006. Paul also was the acting captain of England Sevens when it won the USA Sevens tournament in 2006. He was also a member of the England A team that won the 2003 Churchill Cup in Canada and returned there again on the 2004 Churchill Cup tour.
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Famous quotes containing the word england:
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)