Initially released by Northampton Saints' Academy set-up, Lewis Ludlam's tenacity not only earned him a recall at Under-18 level but a permanent contract with the Club – with the flanker making his senior debut in 2016.
Originally a centre, Ludlam began his career at Ipswich before joining Colchester and attending St Joseph’s College in Northampton. And the flanker impressed at international age-group level, winning the man-of-the-match award on his England Under-18s debut and being named the Red Rose’s Player of the Tournament in the 2015 World Rugby Under-20s Championship, where they made the final.
After helping Wanderers scoop back-to-back Premiership Rugby A League titles in 2017 and 2018, Ludlam burst into the spotlight in Chris Boyd's first season at the helm in Northampton, featuring some 27 times in a remarkable breakthrough 2018/19 season where Saints reached the knock-out stages of every competition and lifted the Premiership Rugby Cup.
The flanker brought up a half-century of appearances in Black, Green and Gold at the end of 2019, with Ludlam's fledgling season culminating in a trip to the Rugby World Cup in Japan to represent England – earning six caps during the side's run to the final of the tournament.
The flanker then returned to Saints to help the side reach the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-finals and claim their first victory on French soil since 2011 before being named a co-captain of the Club alongside Alex Waller in November 2020, before being handed the captain's armband on his own in 2021/22 – while the back row continued to feature on the international stage with Eddie Jones' England side.
