TNT Sports pundits pay tribute to 'huge inspiration' and ex-England captain Lewis Moody after motor neurone disease diagnosis - 'What a guy'
By Ben Southby
Published 10/10/2025 at 21:36 GMT+1
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Lewis Moody, who has recently been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, was "a huge inspiration" to TNT Sports expert and former Wales captain Sam Warburton, while Moody's ex-England team-mate Chris Ashton described the 2003 World Cup winner as a "very calm, nurturing" individual. David Flatman added that Moody "might be the best bloke out of all of us".
‘A huge inspiration’ – Tributes paid to ‘best bloke’ Moody after MND diagnosis
Video credit: TNT Sports
TNT Sports' rugby experts paid tribute to former England captain Lewis Moody ahead of Sale Sharks' Gallagher PREM match against Newcastle Red Bulls.
Moody, 47, who was part of England's World Cup-winning squad in 2003, revealed he had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease earlier this week.
Ex-Wales captain Sam Warburton began the tributes by saying that Moody was a "huge inspiration" and that he "just wanted to follow in his footsteps".
"I don't think he'd know this, we've met loads of times obviously, but I was watching the [British & Irish] Lions tours in 2001 and then 2005," Warburton explained.
"And 2005 was the one that got me. He was wearing the coveted red No. 7 shirt, and I got that red No. 7 shirt for Christmas, and I was wearing it all the time pretending to be Lewis Moody, who was a real inspiration for me growing up. And I was fortunate enough to be captain of my country while he was captain of England as well. Playing against him was a real surreal, surreal thing.
"I met him after the games and then obviously [we] are both in retirement now. And just to echo, what a lovely guy. He probably doesn't know it, but he was a huge inspiration for me and I just wanted to follow in his footsteps.
"What a player and what a guy."
Chris Ashton, a former international team-mate of Moody's, gave a glowing account of the ex-Leicester Tigers and Bath player.
"You go into the England camp for the first time and it's quite intimidating, obviously, and you've got the guy, he's the captain, a World Cup winner, and he was the focal point of the team," he said.
"It's just hard. He's not anything that you'd see on the pitch, really, in person. That's what I was completely shocked by. Very calm, nurturing.
"There were a lot of young lads coming through into the England squad at the time, and he just took us all on.
"And if you had a fear or whatever, or were slightly nervous about the game, and you've got a captain like that on your side who's going to lead by example and lead by his actions, he was an inspiration to us all, as he is today."
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David Flatman continued the tributes, revealing a conversation he had with someone about Moody just a week before his diagnosis.
"I think we all know about Lewis as a player," he said. "I found out [the news] when everyone else found out, Sunday night, Monday, and a week before, somebody called for me from a charity where we do an event every year: 'Phil Vickery we wanted, but he's double booked. What's Lewis Moody like?'
"And I said: 'Ah mate, he's great value. He'll say something inappropriate, everyone will love him'. And he asked if he's a good bloke. And I said - and this is before we found out - 'He might be the only bloke in rugby to be a better bloke than Phil Vickery. He might be the best bloke out of all of us. He's great.'
"What is very difficult to reconcile is that it's happened to him. Why has it happened to him? And it's not fair. So there will be a huge amount of emotion around it for the next few years, the next 20 years, it will be forever for a lot of people.
"That emotion is important, but we do need to park that to a point, or accept that, and actually think, how can we practically help Lewis and his family? How can we help the development of a cure which will come for MND? Which is what we need."
Watch and stream the Gallagher PREM, Quilter Nations Series and Premiership Women's Rugby live on TNT Sports and discovery+
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