Читать книгу Martyn Williams - Marty Williams - Страница 8

Even if I’d scripted it myself, my return to international rugby couldn’t have been any more perfect. It was a decision that could have backfired on me badly, because there’s an old saying in sport that you should never go back. But, as it turned out, it proved to be one of the best calls of my life, as it brought me a second Six Nations Grand Slam and a series of personal landmarks along the way.

I had announced that I was quitting Test rugby the day after Wales were knocked out of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, but in truth I’d made the decision some time before that. Ever since going on the British Lions tour of New Zealand in 2005, I’d been finding it increasingly difficult to juggle all the different aspects of my life, what with my day job with the Cardiff Blues, international rugby, my family and trying to lay the foundations for a future career in the financial industry.

In particular, I was very aware of the amount of time I was spending away from my family. I’ve got two children - my six-year-old daughter Mia and my son, Corey Craig, who is just under three. With me spending so much time away with Wales, it was putting a big burden on my wife, Sam. She has always been amazing and so supportive and I thought it was just fair that I should be around a lot more.

I also wasn’t getting any younger so, at 32, I made the decision that the World Cup in the autumn of 2007 was going to be the end of the international line for me. Unfortunately it wasn’t the swan song I had been hoping for, as we crashed out at the group stage with a shock defeat to Fiji.

Yet I’d made my mind up and there was no turning back – and for the first few weeks I was content that I’d made the right decision. But, gradually, the doubts started to creep into my mind.

It was when I went to watch Wales’ first match after the World Cup, against South Africa at the Millennium Stadium, that I really first began to question what I had done. Myself and Wales’ World Cup captain Gareth Thomas had been invited to go down to watch the game by Prince William, whose cup the teams were playing for. We had met him a couple of times before and when you get an invite like that it’s an opportunity you jump at.

So I went down just really looking forward to spending the day there. We sat next to the Prince in the formal dinner beforehand, with all the dignitaries, and it was a great experience. But it was when I went out to watch the game and saw the boys run out that I started to think about what I had done.

My Blues team-mate and good friend Gethin Jenkins had been made captain for the day and in the lead up to the game he’d asked me if I was sure about quitting. It was kind of an approach on behalf of the caretaker coach, Nigel Davies, to see if I might change my mind. But I had been adamant that I wasn’t coming back. I didn’t even think about it, because it was such a short space of time between then and the World Cup. I was happy with the decision I had made.

But now here I was at the Millennium Stadium, Wales were playing the world champions and I was sat in the stand. A lot of my mates were still in the team and I couldn’t help but feel I should still be out there playing. I realised that I did miss it then, the whole atmosphere, and I went away from there with second thoughts.

I didn’t have much time to dwell on things however, because a couple of days later I was heading up to London to play for the Barbarians against the Springboks. Looking back, that Baa-Baas experience was one of the best weeks of my rugby career. I had played for the famous invitation side once before, almost 10 years previously, in a pretty low game against East Midlands at Northampton, but this was a different world.

I turned up and I was surrounded by all these greats of the game, people like Justin Marshall, Jason Robinson, Jerry Collins, Matt Giteau and Joe Rokococo. I was there with my Blues team-mate Tom Shanklin and we were like little kids, just sitting there looking round us – typical Welsh boys. We’re not the most confident as a breed and we were a bit overawed by it all, but it was to be an unbelievable week and I loved every minute of it.

When I had played against East Midlands all those years ago, that was up and back in a day. But this time we were in a five-star hotel in Park Lane. I found myself sharing with Justin Harrison, the controversial Wallaby second row who had been the scourge of the Lions on the 2001 tour of Australia. I had never met him before and only really knew about him through his reputation as an abrasive, pumped-up character out on the field. So when I saw my name next to his, I thought, ‘Oh my God, Justin Harrison! What a great week I’ve got ahead of me.’ But he was an absolutely top bloke off the field. He was really good company and a real good guy and I had a great time with him.

The whole week was absolutely classic Barbarians. Let’s just say there was a lot of socialising done between the Tuesday and the Thursday. In fairness to the boys, though, they were quite professional on the Friday! Usually during an international week, everything is so formal and structured, but this was real old-school. That’s what I loved about it really. It was such a refreshing change.

Training consisted of doing a few line-outs, playing a little bit of touch, and the rest was down to the natural talent in the side – and there was plenty of that. Alongside me in the back row were Collins and the Aussie Rocky Elsom, and at half-back you had Marshall and Giteau, which was a dream, with Ma’a Nonu at 12 and Rockocko and Robinson out wide.

These were players I had watched and admired for years, so to actually get a chance to play with them was brilliant. Running out with them at Twickenham to take on South Africa was a fantastic experience to cap a brilliant week and the fact that we won the game just added to everything.

We really clicked as a team and things went pretty well for me personally, as I was named Man of the Match. The Baa-Baas traditionally play an open game and you’ve got a licence to try things you would probably never try if you were playing for your country. That kind of game probably suits me a lot. Things came off for us and it was a great experience. I look back on it as one of the big highlights of my career. It had a real international feel and it made me realise that perhaps I could still play at that level.

Coming away I was thinking, ‘God, I am really going to miss this.’ That’s when the doubts really set in. I got back home and a lot of people started questioning my decision and saying that I had shown I could obviously still play at that level. But even then I didn’t contemplate a return. I just thought that it had been a nice swan song and a good way to go out. I thought that was definitely it.

Even though I was starting to rue my decision, there was no way I was going to go with cap in hand and ask for my Wales place back. I am pretty stubborn and my attitude was that I had made my bed and I had to lie in it.

By this stage, Wales had a new coach in the New Zealander Warren Gatland, who had enjoyed huge success with Wasps. There was some speculation that he might like to have me back on board and a lot of people were asking if he had rung me, but I hadn’t heard from him at all. I wasn’t waiting for the phone call or anything. There was no reason to think that he would want me there and I just assumed he was looking to move on.

But then, early in the new year, my life took a dramatic turn. It was Rob Howley – the Blues backs coach who was about to do the same job with Wales – who first let something slip when he asked if Warren had rung me. I said no and asked why, but Rob just said, ‘Never mind’. I thought it was just him winding me up.

But then a couple of days later, I came home to find there was a message on my answer machine. I switched it on and I heard: ‘It’s Warren Gatland here, can you give me a call back?’ It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out what that was about. I gave him a call and he asked if I fancied meeting up for a coffee, which we did at Wales’ base at the Vale of Glamorgan hotel just outside Cardiff.

As soon as I’d heard the message, I’d started thinking I really wanted to be part of it all again, because the build-up to the Six Nations championship had started and all the talk was about who was going to be in the squad. So when I met up with him, I wouldn’t say my mind was made up, but I definitely went in there with a positive mind-set.

I sat down with him and from the first moment, it was typical Gats – as I was to come to know him. There was no gloss put on it, nothing fanciful. It was just a case of ‘I think you can still do a job for us and I’d love you to be part of the squad.’ He went on, ‘I won’t lie to you, it’s not going to be easy. You’ll work harder than you’ve probably ever worked before. But I’ll guarantee you’ll enjoy it and we’ll have success.’

My first reaction was that he was a real down-to-earth genuine bloke, while his record spoke wonders. There was also talk of the Wasps head coach Shaun Edwards coming on board along with Rob Howley and I knew in my heart of hearts they were going to do well because all the ingredients were there. The players were certainly there. So to be given the chance to be part of that was hugely tempting, but I told Warren I’d have to go away to think about it.

When I’d decided to retire, I probably hadn’t taken as much advice as I should have. It was more of an emotional decision based on a tough 18 months with Wales, so I really wanted to think this one through properly.

I spoke to Sam and asked what she thought and she just said I should do what I felt was best. Then I spoke to a few people whose opinions I really respect, like David ‘Dai’ Young, the Blues coach, who was really supportive, while the ex-players I spoke to all said it’s a short career anyway and you don’t want make it any shorter.

My heart definitely wanted to do it, but just to make sure I sat down and wrote down the pros and cons. My family was a big issue because I was concerned about spending a lot of time away from them. But Gats had explained we weren’t going to be in camp as much as in the past, so that helped on that front. The only other con was the amount of stick I would get for coming out of retirement.

As I looked at my list, the rest were all just positives.

So my mind was made up and I told Sam. She was great about it and just said, ‘I knew you were going to do that anyway!’ I rang Warren to accept his offer on the Sunday night and when it came out the next morning that I was back, my phone started going non-stop with calls, messages and texts. I had to switch it off in the end.

I hadn’t really told any of the Cardiff players, so when I walked back into training, I took a hell of lot of stick there. Absolutely everyone was taking the mickey out of me, but that was a small price to pay for what lay in store.

I was pretty much straight into camp with Wales, because the Six Nations was just around the corner. On our first day, there was a meeting called for 9.30 in the morning and you were thinking, ‘Here we go, a two hour meeting on protocols, the same stuff you have with every new management team’. But it wasn’t like that at all.

Normally when you have a new coaching set-up, you have all these power-point presentations, but this was very different. It was just a case of ‘Right, this is what I expect from you’. Warren was very straight-forward and to the point and I remember Shaun was just sat there at the front glaring at everyone. He said his piece and you could see all the boys’ backs straightening.

From day one, the message was if we were going to be successful we were going to have to start working harder than anyone else. As a player, it was quite refreshing and very different. With some coaches in the past, it felt like a teacher and school-kid scenario, but this felt like an adult conversation with no gloss put on it. There was straight talking and a clear message. There were no grey areas and you knew straight away where you stood.

As a player, when a new coach comes in everyone is on edge and nervous and not sure how to be. You are thinking to yourself, ‘Should I relax here, should I have a laugh, should I crack a joke?’ I think Gats sensed that in us. He just said, ‘Look, relax, we are in this together.’

If that approach was different, then his training sessions were a real eye-opener. Just the length of them was bizarre for us. Every coach has a different philosophy on how long you should train for. The norm is that you are out there for around 75 to 90 minutes. But that’s not the Gatland way.

He’d say 45 minutes and that’s how long we would be there – not a minute longer. But while the sessions were a lot shorter, the intensity was really up a notch. The ball-in-play time during a match is about 45 minutes and I think he wants to make the training harder than the game, so that when you get into a game it’s easier. That’s the whole philosophy. It caught us by surprise at first because we’d never trained that short before and another big change was the amount of weights sessions in the gym. But it worked.

As a coaching team, the new group proved to be a great mix. Gats is very hands on for a head coach. He does a lot with the forwards and likes to coach the contact area. Robin McBryde does the line-out and the scrums, but Gats helps there as well. Rob Howley does the backs, Neil Jenkins works on the kicking and Shaun handles the defence. Previously Tuesday had been our defence day, but with Shaun we would do defence every day. Yet they were short, sharp bursts which, as a player, is brilliant. You are constantly refreshed and topped up that way.

Most of the boys are younger than me and a lot of them probably don’t remember Shaun as a rugby league star with Wigan and Great Britain. But at that time, in the early ‘90s, I was at that age – about 15 or 16 – when I was really interested in rugby league. So for me, to have this legend in front of me was something else.

The first thing you noticed was that he was very intense. A few of the boys had it in the neck the first couple of mistakes they made, but Shaun doesn’t just shout and bawl for the sake of it. What he says makes sense. He’s hugely knowledgeable on the game. People sometimes think he is just shouting and screaming all the time and we are scared of him. But the truth is we have got total respect for him. If he’s shouting and screaming, it’s because you’ve made a mistake and he doesn’t want you to let the side down, so he does it for a reason.

We didn’t have long to prepare for the Six Nations and before we knew it we were heading up to Twickenham for our opening fixture against England.

Going up there, we didn’t really know what to expect of ourselves. Warren had picked 13 Ospreys, with myself and the Scarlets winger Mark Jones the only exceptions. That raised quite a few eyebrows, but you could sense the week before that that’s the way it might go because we had a new defensive policy, with the ‘blitz’ defence that Shaun favours, and the Ospreys boys were comfortable with it. So you had an inkling that might happen, because defence was such a huge part of our game-plan going up there. It was a brave and bold decision, but that wasn’t to be the last of those during the championship.

In truth, we went up to Twickers with more hope than expectation. We hadn’t won up there for 20 years and, at the end of the day, England had just got to the World Cup final, while we didn’t even get out of our group, so they should have been favourites and it started off like that. We perhaps weren’t quite sure of what we were trying to do and we spent most of the first half on the ropes.

Looking back on the game, the period just before half time was huge. Our hooker, Huw Bennett, just managed to get his hand in to deny their winger Paul Sackey a try and we stopped the two driving line-outs that followed that. If England had scored then, they would probably have been done and dusted. But you’ve got to give the guys credit. We dug in there and got to half-time.

The message from Gats then was ‘Don’t panic’. He said we hadn’t played at all yet and that once we kept a bit of ball and did start playing we would cause them problems. He proved to be spot on because it all just clicked in the second half.

Our young fly-half James Hook did brilliantly for our first try, showing great feet and skinning a couple of defenders to put Lee Byrne in, while Mike Phillips was involved three times in our second. He made the clearing kick, he raced up field to charge down Iain Balshaw and he finished it off by scoring in the corner. It was just a great effort from him.

In the space of a few minutes, the whole momentum of the game had changed. Everything we were doing was paying off and they were making mistakes. We just grew in confidence and things started coming off. It’s an amazing thing momentum.

What was really pleasing then was the way we shut the game down at the end, picking and going through the forwards, which is normally what England would do to us. That was something we had worked on for the previous fortnight in training, just looking after the ball, and it paid off.

When the final whistle went, I was just in shock that we had actually won. My very first championship game had been against England at Twickenham ten years earlier, when it was still the Five Nations. We’d lost that one 60-26 and I’d suffered quite a few dark days at HQ over the years.

So to actually win there was something very special. I’d beaten England a couple of times at home which was great, but to actually go to Twickenham and win – which no Welsh team had done since 1988 – was a huge feat for us. What made it all the sweeter was thinking that I could have been stuck in the house watching it on TV if I hadn’t come out of retirement. To be part of that victory made it look a pretty good decision straight away! It really was a surreal feeling, given that just a few weeks earlier I’d been expecting to be a spectator. It flicked through my mind that it would have been so frustrating not to actually be part of it.

As you can imagine, the mood in the dressing room was really jubilant. That was the first time Shaun gave us his version of an old Drifters song, which was to become a bit of an anthem for us during the championship. I think he expected us all to have a song, but we didn’t. We usually just chuck the iPod on the speakers. So when nobody responded when Shaun said, ‘Give us a song’, he said, ‘Right then, I’ll give you one’ and started singing ‘Saturday Night at Movies’. I’m not sure if all the lads knew the song, but I did because someone used to sing it on the bus years ago when I was with Pontypridd Youth. That made me feel pretty old all of a sudden!

It would have been easy for us to get carried away, because after all we were the first group of Welshmen to win in England for 20 years. We knew there would be loads of euphoria back home, but there was a massive message from all of us that we had a huge game the week after against Scotland. So it was a case of keeping our feet on the ground. We had a bit of a dinner and it was straight back on the bus to the Vale of Glamorgan.

We all expected the same side to be picked to face the Scots as we’d just beaten England up there. In the past, it would have been a case of ‘same again’ after a big win like that. But Gatland shocked everyone by making a number of changes, including replacing Mark Jones with my young Blues team-mate Jamie Roberts, and dropping the Scarlets’ back row forward Alix Popham from the 22 altogether.

It surprised the boys because the two lads hadn’t really played badly. I think the coaches weren’t happy with Alix because he’d given a couple of penalties away, but he’s still had an aggressive game after coming on as an early sub for the injured Jonathan Thomas, while Mark had had a couple of bangs on the head but didn’t really do anything wrong.

So it was a huge statement by the coaches about the standards expected from everybody. I certainly didn’t see it coming. It was a case of making it clear who was in charge. It would have been easy to say, ‘Great boys, you’ve just beaten England’, but in the debrief there was a lot of things pointed out as being unacceptable, especially in the first 50 minutes, and we were told in no uncertain terms that we needed to do better.

Warren provided further evidence that he was going to do things his way by swapping the Millennium Stadium changing rooms around ahead of the Scotland game. He said he didn’t like the lay-out of the home one and that the away one was a much better set-up. Us old traditionalists weren’t so sure. As a player, you get used to your home changing room. I had been used to changing in the same spot for a long time. But his response to our concerns was ‘It hasn’t been so successful for you, has it?’ and you couldn’t really argue with that. So it was off to a new home. It was a bit strange to go up the stairs and go left instead of right after entering the stadium, but at the end of the day it’s what happens out on the pitch that really matters and that side of things was to go pretty well.

There was to be yet another indication of Warren’s bold decision-making during the game against Scotland. It felt comfortable enough out there, but we just couldn’t pull away from them and after an hour the game was in the balance with us ahead by just two points.

That was the cue for Gats to really shake things up again by taking off his 8, 9 and 10 – our skipper Ryan Jones and our two half-backs, Mike Phillips and James Hook – with Gareth Delve, Dwayne Peel and Stephen Jones coming on.

It was a huge decision. How many coaches would do that – take off your captain and your half-backs with 20 minutes to go? But it worked. All the guys who came on played really well and we pulled clear with Shane Williams sealing the victory by adding to his first-half try with a spectacular touchdown. When I saw the ball in his hands about 40 metres out, you could see what he was trying to do straight away. It was a phenomenal effort as he left defenders for dead, contorting his body to touch down one-handed in the corner. Perhaps his toe was in touch, perhaps it wasn’t, but it deserved to be a try and it was a key moment for us in securing the win.

That victory was all the more special for me for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I had taken over the captaincy after Ryan went off. Now I hadn’t had a great record as Wales skipper. In fact, I’d lost all five games in charge, which had led some of my mates to jokingly dub me ‘Captain Crap’. So it was a nice feeling to be at the helm at the end of this one and finally get a win.

I was also named Man of the Match afterwards and I was particularly pleased with that as it was my first game back at the Millennium. Things went quite well that day and I was really chuffed to get the award. It was further proof that I had made the right decision in coming back.

I must admit, at half-time at Twickenham, I had been thinking, ‘What have I done?’ But after two games, I couldn’t have dreamed for anything better. I’d beaten England in Twickenham, then been Man of the Match against the Scots and claimed a first win as skipper. I felt like pinching myself, to be honest.

Next up was Italy in Cardiff and that proved to be another comfortable victory in the end. I remember at half-time a couple of boys were quite edgy about it because it was pretty tight. But I remember Gats saying, ‘Boys, we will blow them away in the last 30 minutes. Don’t panic, we will be fine. Just keep doing what we are doing.’ And we was right, we did blow them away.

Tom Shanklin set the ball rolling with an interception try, which was great for him on his 50th cap, Lee Byrne was excellent at full-back and Shane scored another brilliant brace of tries, so it was job done really.

Now we were one game away from the Triple Crown, with a trip to Dublin ahead of us. The build-up to that game was dominated by talk about the two opposing coaches, Gats and Eddie O’Sullivan, who had once worked together with Ireland. As players, we didn’t know too much about it. We had obviously heard the rumours that they didn’t get on from way back and there was a huge focus on them, which is quite good as a player because it deflects everything from the actual game. It was all centred on those two. But I didn’t sense that Gats was any more intense. He is such a laid back character that it didn’t seem to affect him.

It was a similar situation to Twickenham in that none of us had ever been out to Dublin and won. It was a place we hadn’t had any success and we knew it was a huge game. It was also the first time any of us had played at Croke Park as well, so it was a case of going into the unknown.

Obviously there was a lot of hype about the new venue, but I wouldn’t say it was intimidating. It’s one of those stadiums that’s so impressive it kind of inspires you as an away player. It’s just an honour and a privilege to play there with all the history that goes with it.

Ireland made the better start and Shane Horgan was only an inch or so away from scoring, but Mike Phillips just managed to get underneath him. That was kind of a turning point and it shows what a fine line there is between success and failure. As it went on, we got more and more into the game and had a few opportunities to score but couldn’t quite take them. Then just before half-time Mike went from hero to villain when he was sin-binned. We were up against it now, but Shane went to scrum-half and was awesome there for 10 minutes. It was a case of battening down the hatches and keeping the ball while Mike was off, which is what the pack and Shane did brilliantly.

Then, midway through the half, it was my turn to see yellow when I was carded for a trip on the Irish scrum-half, Eion Reddan. It had been my fault initially that their No 8, Jamie Heaslip, was able to break through. He should have been my man, but I was so fixed on Brian O’Driscoll, thinking he was going to get the ball, that I made the mistake in the defensive line for them to go through. Then Reddan whizzed past me on a supporting run and I knew there was no way I was going to catch him. I thought I had to do something, so instinctively I took his legs away.

It’s not something I’m proud of but, to be honest, I can’t believe I got caught. I was thinking I’d got away with it, but then the referee Wayne Barnes blew up. He shouldn’t have seen it because it was behind the play, but in all fairness he is a top ref and he did spot it. As soon as the whistle went, I started walking off because I knew I was going. I thought sin-bin straight away. It was a horrible feeling because the game was still really in the balance. I couldn’t defend myself in any way or say it was an unjustified yellow. I was bang to rights. It was a long walk to the chair and a long 10 minutes sat there.

Fortunately I got back on just in time to savour another piece of match-winning magic from Shane. I carried the ball up, then from my ruck it went to Shane and he produced a fantastic finish. Everyone knows he’s got great balance, feet and speed, but he’s deceptively strong as well. For that try, he went between Andrew Trimble and Tommy Bowe, who are two big strong defenders. It wasn’t as though he just waltzed around a prop. You are talking two quality outside backs and he just made them look foolish, handing off Trimble on the way. We are so lucky that we’ve got someone that special in our side.

At the end of the game, it was a bit of a repeat of the England match in the way we kept the ball and ran down the clock, albeit for a fair bit longer this time. We killed the clock off brilliantly, with the forwards just picking and going. It wasn’t the prettiest to watch, but I don’t think any Welshman would complain.

To be honest, though, I can’t remember too much about it. I’d had two clouts in that game – an elbow in the jaw off their prop and then a bump on the back of the head – so I can’t really remember much of the last five minutes. I do know I’ve never been in so much pain in my life though.

After the final whistle, the boys were all celebrating on the pitch, but I just wanted to get off because I was feeling terrible. I remember feeling sick in the dressing room afterwards because I was bit concussed and when the boys went on to the dinner, I stayed in the hotel with Huw Bennett who had pulled out of the game through illness. So I wasn’t at my best, but to win the Triple Crown – and in Ireland as well where I’d never won before – was still a great feeling that more than made up for a bit of a sore head.

That left just one more match – at home to France – between us and the Grand Slam, which obviously brought back memories of the Slam we’d won in Cardiff three years earlier. In 2005, our last game had been against Ireland and everyone kind of assumed we were going to win. It was seen as a foregone conclusion and that it was meant to be.

But I think a lot of people doubted us for this one. France had picked their strongest side and people thought we were going to struggle. There was a sense from the public that they didn’t know if we are going to beat them and that it might be a game too far. A lot of people were saying as long as we keep it within 20 points, which is what we needed to do to win the championship. There was expectation and hope but it certainly wasn’t seen as a foregone conclusion as it had been three years ago. Still everyone was massively excited and it was brilliant to go through it all again.

It was a very different kind of day, mind you. In 2005, the weather had been beautiful and thousands of people had gathered outside the civic centre in Cardiff to watch the game on a big screen. But this time it was pouring down and they had to cancel the big screen. It was a 5.30pm kick-off as well, so it was a pretty long day. The fans had been out all day and some of them were a bit worse for wear and they were looking fairly wet and bedraggled. But the support was as passionate as ever and the bus journey to the ground was just as memorable as it had been in 2005. In some ways, that was the best thing about the day. To see all those crowds and think they are there to watch you play is an unbelievable feeling, but it’s also daunting in some respects.

When we got to the ground, the message from everyone within the group was just to keep doing what we had been doing. It was a case of ‘Let’s not change just because it’s a big game. Just do what you do best and do what you’ve done for rest of the Six Nations and we’ll be fine.’ That was it really. There’s not a whole lot needs to be said before a game like that. The boys are so up for it. If anything, you’ve got to try and bring them down a peg or two, just to make sure they are clear in their minds.

When the game got under way, it soon became clear that we were going to have our work cut out if we were to complete the Slam. We were really under the cosh in the first half and didn’t have a hell of a lot of the ball. It goes without saying the French pack was huge, but their back-line was massive as well. For me as a flanker, when you are looking up and their backs are all bigger than you, you are thinking this could be a long day.

We just couldn’t get the ball in that first half, so we spent most of the time defending. Our defence had been good throughout the championship, but this was when it really came into its own. I’ve watched the game a couple of times since and the organisation of our defence was brilliant. The boys made an incredible amount of tackles. From 1 to 15, it’s probably the best defensive game a Welsh team has ever put together.

Initially, France tried to pick and go around the ruck and maul area. When they didn’t get any joy from that, they started throwing it wide, but we held firm out there as well. We even kept them out when we were down to 14 men after Gavin Henson got sin binned just before half-time. That was tough against France, who are as good an attacking side as anyone on their day, but we managed it.

Going into the second-half, the game was in the balance, as had been the case with all of our matches during the championship. But once again, it was time for Shane to tip the balance. There didn’t seem that much on when the ball went loose in midfield, but Shane only needs half a chance. We’ve all seen his ability with the ball in hand, but he’s a brilliant football player as well, which he showed now. He put in a great kick and then showed his gas to get to the ball for the touchdown ahead of a couple of defenders. It was an awesome opportunist try and it was fitting that he should claim the score that took us away from them. It was also a fitting way for him to break Gareth Thomas’ record and become Wales’ all-time leading try scorer.

It really was a special effort, but it didn’t come as any surprise to me, because Shane is probably the most talented player I’ve ever played with. He’s just got everything and it’s been a privilege to play alongside him. Everything he touched during the championship seemed to turn to gold. He was phenomenal and he continued in the same vein on the summer tour of South Africa, which I missed through injury. He’s got the ability to create things out of nothing in a way that only he can.

That record-breaking try against the French must have been really sweet for him, but my own magic moment was still to come. There were just a couple of minutes left and we were on the attack in their 22 after Mark Jones had gone virtually the length of the field on an amazing run. I went to scrum-half at a ruck and then when the ball popped out, it all just opened up for me. I saw a little gap and went through it and suddenly there was this huge space in front of me with nothing between me and the line. I was thinking, This can’t be happening, it’s wrong. I honestly thought the ref was going to blow up. But the whistle didn’t blow and I just kept going and touched down.

When I turned round and just saw all the boys sprinting towards me it was just a phenomenal feeling. There was a sense of relief and joy from all us knowing that was it, that we’d done it.

Nothing like that has ever kind of happened to me before. I’d come close in the Fiji game at the World Cup when I scored a late interception try to put us in front, but they came back to snatch the win. This was different. There was no coming back for the French and I had scored the try that sealed the Slam. To put the icing on the cake like that was an awesome feeling. It really was a dream comes true. I was named Man of the Match afterwards and it was nice to get that, but it was so difficult to pick anyone out because everyone played so well. It’s the mark of a good side that the bigger the game the better you play and we all stood up that day, so it’s a big pat on the back to all the boys from 1 to 22. They gave absolutely everything and for my part I was certainly feeling it at the final whistle.

I have never been so tired after a game. I was just out on my feet. I remember on the podium for the trophy presentation, when the boys were all jumping up and down, I was just standing there. I literally didn’t have the energy to move. I don’t know if it’s my age, but I was just absolutely knackered – both emotionally and physically drained.

In the evening, there was an official function at the Hilton Hotel with the wives and girlfriends and then, the same as in 2005, we went to the pub in the Brains brewery for a private party. We had a couple of glasses of champagne in there and all the boys went out into Cardiff - apart from me! I went back on the bus with Sam, the coaching team and the trophy. I had just jumped on the bus first, thinking there would be a few boys heading back, but none of them did. They all went out for the night. So it was just me on the bus. I had a load of stick for that afterwards. I guess it’s me showing my age! But while I might not have had the wildest of nights, I couldn’t have been any happier. It was all the sweeter because of the realisation that I might have missed out on it all.

I suppose it was a risk coming back. Things could have gone badly wrong and it could have been a really bad decision. I could have been made to look a fool. I’m not going to name names, but I remember one person saying to me “Look be careful if you go back, you could go to Twickenham, get stuffed and be left hang out to dry”.

But I was really fortunate that I came into a side that played so well and I kind of just went along with the ride. In sport, it’s all about timing and a lot of it is luck. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I just feel so privileged and lucky to have got a second chance – and it simply couldn’t have turned out any better. To go to Twickenham and win for the first time in 20 years, to go to Dublin and win the Triple Crown, to win another Grand Slam and score the clinching try – somebody must have been up there looking over me.

A lot of people have asked me how on earth we managed to turn things round so quickly and go from World Cup flops to Grand Slam winners in the space of six months. For me, there were a couple of key factors. To start with, we had two massive players back in Ryan Jones and Gavin Henson. They are hugely influential. Gav’s record speaks for itself. He’s never lost a Six Nations game that he’s started, while Ryan had a huge influence as well as skipper. They are two British Lions standard players, so having them back was vitally important.

I also think we became mentally stronger as a group. That got instilled in us by the coaches – the confidence that we were good players and as good as these sides we were playing against. Perhaps we had kind of doubted ourselves a little bit before.

As for what the new coaches added, I would say intensity, clarity and organisation. You can use all of those words. They also brought the best out of individuals. Players like the Ospreys full-back Lee Byrne just came from nowhere and was absolutely phenomenal. The coaches got the best out of the players and got them to play to their potential by whatever means was necessary.

We’d won the 2005 Grand Slam by playing a great brand of rugby that was brilliant to watch, but this was a more professional, organised way of winning it and that was just so un-Welsh. We proved a lot of people wrong by playing that way and proved to ourselves more importantly. We weren’t sure if we could play that way and defend that way, but we did – and that’s down to the coaches giving us belief that we could.

It was different to 2005 in that this came from nowhere. In 2005, we’d been building up to success for a while, but we hadn’t shown a glimpse of playing anything like we did in 2008. I think it’s important now we realise there is still a lot of hard work to be done and that we learn the lesson from what happened after 2005 and kick on from the success this time.

Looking back, I wouldn’t say one Grand Slam side was better than the other one. They are different teams. I think if they were to play against each other, it would probably be stalemate. One team was so good at attacking and the other was so good at defending. It would be a draw, but a great game to watch. And I guess I’d be pretty busy, playing on both sides!

On a personal note, it was great to win one Slam, but to win two, well there’s only a few of us that can actually say that. It totally vindicated my decision to come back and hopefully there’s still a bit more to come from me yet. One thing’s for sure, I won’t be retiring again any time soon!