England prop Paul Rendall has passed away at 69

Paul Rendall, one of England’s greatest props, has did at the age of 69 a year after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease, Bracknell RFC has announced.

Nicknamed ‘The Judge’, Rendall won 28 caps for England over a seven-year stint between 1984 and his retirement just after the 1991 World Cup, where he featured in one match at the age of 37. The loosehead also enjoyed a glittering career with former Premiership side, Wasps, the club he joined in 1976.

After an England debut against Wales in the 1984 Five Nations, Rendall was selected to tour South Africa with England that summer, his inaugural outing as the judge at the players’ ‘kangaroo court’. It was a role that Rendall would continue until his retirement in 1991, a torn Achilles tendon in the week leading up to the World Cup final ruling him out of rugby’s showpiece...

...Moore, Rendall’s hooker for most if not all of the loosehead’s 28 caps, was one of the first to pay tribute to Rendall’s avuncular nature.

“Paul looked after me when I was a fledgling international, in the hard school of the front row,” Moore wrote on Twitter. “He was the best of men and a superb technician. I, and the world of rugby, will miss him greatly. “RIP The Judge.”