.jpg) Cueto in 2013 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Mark John Cueto (1979-12-26)26 December 1979 (age 45) Workington, Cumbria, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 15 st 0 lb (95 kg)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| School | St. Thomas More School Alsager Comprehensive | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| University | Manchester Metropolitan University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Mark John CuetoMBE (born 26 December 1979 inWorkington, Cumbria) is a formerEnglish internationalrugby union player. He played on thewing forSale Sharks andEngland. He is currently the third leading try scorer in theAviva Premiership.
On 28 January 2015, it was announced Cueto was to retire at the end of the2014-15 season[2]
Mark Cueto was born to Frank and Anne Cueto. He has a sister called Rachel. He owes his surname to his Spanish great-grandfather, Antonio, who sailed fromSantander in the 1900s and settled inMaryport, Cumbria, where he set up a fish-and-chip shop.[3] His Cumbrian home town ofWorkington is in an area more associated withrugby league than union. Although he played his first rugby game as an eight-year-old inWorkington, and played after he moved with his parents toWolverhampton, he did not grow up playing the game. When he was 10 years old, his parents moved again toCrewe, where he took upfootball instead of rugby, becoming a keen Manchester United fan.[4] He did not play rugby again until he was 17. His early clubs wereCrewe & Nantwich RUFC,Sandbach RUFC andAltrincham Kersal, with the latter he won theCheshire RFU Plate in 1998.
Then, when he was 17 and in his final A-level year atAlsager Comprehensive, there was the annual rugby match against Holmes Chapel. It was an occasion of no great importance. Holmes Chapel had a reasonable team, but rugby players were thin on the ground at Alsager and there was not much debate about the likely result. To make up a team, Alsager teacher Lindsay Purcell recruited a number of footballers. Cueto was one of those press-ganged into service, though when it came to sport he was easily persuaded. Football was number one but he had also done athletics, basketball, volleyball and cricket.[3]
Cueto is married to Suzie (née Richards), originally from Corby in Northamptonshire, who works in the Manchester United FC hospitality department. She gave birth to a baby boy called Max, their first child, on 6 August 2010. The couple have two more sons called Louis (b. 2013) and Joshua (b. 2018). They live together in Altrincham. He is a graduate ofManchester Metropolitan University.[5]
In 2009, Cueto was featured in a campaign of male underwear forJockey International. He also appeared as a guest in two episodes of the quiz showA Question of Sport in 2005.[citation needed]
Cueto made his début forSale Sharks againstBristol Shoguns in 2001 and made theEngland tour to Argentina in 2002,[6] playing againstArgentina A.[7]
Cueto saw success at club level in his first five years at the club, winning theEuropean Challenge Cup twice, first in 2002 when Sale beatPontypridd 25–22 at theKassam Stadium on 26 May 2002.[8] He was also part of the Sale team that beatPau, the champions in 2000, by 27 points to 3, also at the Kassam Stadium on 21 May 2005. Cueto scored atry in the victory.[9] He had his best individual season in2004–05, scoring 11 tries in just 18 games played. Cueto helped Sale Sharks to top the league in the2005–06 season and carry that form through to win the season ending play-offs, scoring a try as they beatLeicester Tigers in the final, to becomePremiership champions for the first time.[10]
In May 2010, Cueto was voted into Sale Shark's Hall of Fame.[11] He played his 150th match for Sale in their 54–21 defeat to Leicester in late December 2010.[12] A few days later, Cueto was appointed club captain by the new coachPete Anglesea;[13] Anglesea replacedMike Brewer as Sale had won just three out of nine matches in the 2010–11 season by mid-December.[14] Cueto was Sale's sixth captain of the season.[15] In April, Cueto was banned by theRugby Football Union for nine weeks after pleading guilty to "making contact with the eye or eye area". The incident involvedChristian Day and occurred in a match against Northampton on 2 April.[16] At the start of the 2011–12 season, in August, Cueto was replaced as Sale captain, withSam Tuitupou taking over role.[17]
On 8 February 2013 Cueto broke the Premiership try scoring record of 75 bySteve Hanley, touching down for his 76th try in a 21-16 comeback win overExeter.[18] He eventually retired in 2015 after having scored a then record 90 tries. His record was broken on 10 February 2017 by Bristol's wingTom Varndell.
Cueto was appointedMember of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the2016 New Year Honours for services to rugby union.[19]
Cueto representedEngland in the2000–01 World Sevens Series.[20] Cueto appears alongsideAll Blacks captainRichie McCaw on the cover of the United Kingdom version of theEA Sports gameRugby 08.
He was not selected for the full England squad duringClive Woodward's time as head coach, having to wait until November 2004 for his début againstCanada atTwickenham, when he scored two tries.[21] He would play for England up until 2011, scoring 20 tries, at the time the 7th most try scored for his Country.
In 2005, he was called up to theBritish & Irish Lions for theirNew Zealand tour after original selectionIain Balshaw was ruled out due to injury.[22] He featured in the thirdTest atEden Park, Auckland.[23] The same year he was the top try scorer in the2005 Six Nations with 4.
Cueto was a prominent member of England's2007 Rugby World Cup in France. He started the first match of England's defence of the title atFull-back against theUSA. He also played in England's embarrassing 36–0 defeat toSouth Africa. Having been dropped for the next match against Samoa, he was installed to the English defence for the encounter withTonga, which ensured England's progression through to the quarter-final stage. He was left out of the surprise quarter-final victory againstAustralia and the even more surprising semi-final victory overFrance due to a niggling injury. During the semi-final, England wingJosh Lewsey suffered a pulled hamstring and was forced to miss the final.
Cueto was selected to take his place for the2007 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 officialStuart 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 includingBBC Radio 5 Live presenterIan Robertson subsequently backed Dickinson's decision.[24]
He did not feature for England throughout 2008, but was recalled to the squad for the2009 Six Nations, scoring a try in the opening game againstItaly[25] and in England's 34–10 victory overFrance.[26]
Cueto was a regular forEngland throughout 2010 and 2011, and contributed toEngland's successful2011 Six Nations campaign. Cueto won his 50th cap forEngland in the final match of theSix Nations againstIreland. 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.
After being out of the game for 10 years, in February 2025 it was announced that Cueto would take on the role of assistant coach forSale Sharks Women.[28]
