Mark Cueto - International Career

International Career

Cueto represented England in the 2000–01 World Sevens Series. Cueto appears alongside All Blacks captain Richie McCaw on the cover of the United Kingdom version of the EA Sports game Rugby 08.

He was not selected for the full England squad during Clive Woodward's time as head coach, having to wait until November 2004 for his début against Canada at Twickenham, when he scored two tries.

In 2005, he was called up to the British and Irish Lions for their New Zealand tour after original selection Iain Balshaw was ruled out due to injury. He featured in the third Test at Eden Park, Auckland.

Cueto was a prominent member of England's 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. He started the first match of England's defence of the title at Full-back against the USA. He also played in England's embarrassing 36–0 defeat to South Africa. Having been dropped for the next match against Samoa, he was installed to the English defence for the encounter with Tonga, which ensured England's progression through to the quarter-final stage. He was left out of the surprise quarter-final victory against Australia and the even more surprising semi-final victory over France due to a niggling injury. During the semi-final, England wing Josh Lewsey suffered a pulled hamstring and was forced to miss the final.

Cueto was selected to take his place for the 2007 final against previous pool opponents, South Africa. His participation in the match became memorable when he was denied a try in the second half of the match by Australian television match official Stuart Dickinson. After a great deal of deliberation over real-time footage (and facing a language barrier with a French television producer who did not provide the stills he wanted) Dickinson disallowed the try on the basis of Cueto's left foot entering touch (touching the side-line) before the ball was grounded. This was not immediately obvious and Cueto's left leg was subsequently raised within the boundary of play, travelling over it after the ball was on the ground; this led many to believe the judgement had been wrongly made on the basis of the latter movement. A division of opinion still exists, although most experts including BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Ian Robertson subsequently backed Dickinson's decision.

He did not feature for England throughout 2008, but was recalled to the squad for the 2009 Six Nations, scoring a try in the opening game against Italy and in England's 34–10 victory over France.

Cueto was a regular for England throughout 2010 and 2011, and contributed to England's successful 2011 Six Nations campaign. Cueto won his 50th cap for England in the final match of the Six Nations against Ireland. Cueto missed the first 2 games of the 2011 Rugby World cup in New Zealand due to a back injury, but completed a hat-trick of tries when returning to the starting line up against Romania.