Geoff Appleford (born 26 September 1977 in

Dundee, South Africa The coal mining town of Dundee is situated in a valley of the Biggarsberg mountains in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (). It is part of the Endumeni Municipality, Umzinyathi District. It is very rich in coal deposits. More populous than the town ...

) is a retired

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

footballer who played for

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club which competes in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club has also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While ...

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

, then ended his career with

Northampton Saints Northampton Saints (officially Northampton Rugby Football Club) is a professional rugby union club from Northampton, England. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. They were formed in 1880 as "Northampton St. James", ...

, although because of injury he never played a competitive game for the club. Geoff also played for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He was educated at

Maritzburg College Maritzburg College is a semi-private English-medium high school for boys situated in the city of Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1863 and it's the oldest boys' high school in KwaZulu-Natal – and one of the o ...

. A former Natal Shark and Mpumalanga Puma, Appleford joined

in 2000. He made his

England Sevens The England national rugby sevens team competes in the World Rugby Sevens Series, Rugby World Cup Sevens and the Commonwealth Games. England's best finish in the Sevens Series is second place, which they have achieved four times, most recently i ...

debut in 2001 and won his full

cap in 2002; qualifying through his grandparents. He was a member of

’s

Powergen Cup The RFU Knockout Cup was an English rugby union competition open to any member of the Rugby Football Union. First contested in 1971, it was the premier competition in English club rugby before the establishment of the English league structure in 1 ...

winning team of 2002, starting in the final and scoring two tries. In the summer of 2005 Appleford joined

. In January 2007 Appleford was forced to take early retirement after failing to recover fully from a shoulder injury. Also, Appleford is possibly the only player to be signed whilst injured and retire having not played a game for them.

References

External links

Appleford's injury forces early retirement

Northampton profile

Guinness Premiership profile
England international rugby union players English rugby union players Rugby union centres Northampton Saints players London Irish players 1977 births Living people Alumni of Maritzburg College Rugby union players from KwaZulu-Natal {{England-rugbyunion-bio-stub