Читать книгу Michael Owen - Michael Owen - Страница 11

My brother David had left school, done an apprenticeship and ended up working at the same factory as our dad; when I got to sixteen my aim was to fulfil my ambitions in rugby. I never fully comprehended the importance of that time: that you make decisions that will affect the rest of your life. By 1996, rugby was starting to morph into a professional sport, but my dream hadn’t changed because of that – I had always wanted to play for Pontypridd and Wales.

I could have left school in June 1997 with ten GCSEs. My mother helped me with some of the subjects, she was amazing, and I worked hard to make sure I got as many GCSEs as possible. I could have got a job and carried on playing through the Wales youth team, but my perception was that Wales Schools, which was for players still involved in education, was better. So I stayed on to do A-levels and decided to do Maths, Economics and Physical Education.

Some English clubs, including Saracens, were sniffing around the Wales Schools set-up. There were plenty of other English clubs, too. A few contemporaries went to Bath RFC and did their A-levels at Colstons School. To keep the best young players in Wales, the WRU started offering bursaries and I was awarded £1,000 a term to cover costs after I had started my A-levels. I was offered a place at Christ College in Brecon, but I wasn’t sure that it would be the best move for me in rugby terms. I believed that pushing to get into the senior team with Pontypridd via the youth team was the best option.

Playing for Beddau at Under-16 level, everyone was saying the step-up to Under-19 level was huge. I had a chance to move to a bigger club. There was a chance to go to Pontypridd or Cardiff. Cardiff sent a letter with the crest on the envelope and an invite down to the Arms Park. I went with my father to watch a game from a hospitality box and there were half a dozen boys, four of them from Beddau: Scot Yoxall, Nathan Hopkins, Jason Simpson and me. Jason signed and, looking back at the difference between the set-ups, I should probably have gone there too.

At Pontypridd, I just had an informal meeting with Jack Bayliss, the team manager. Rhys Williams, who was in charge of the Pontypridd Schools XV, arranged the meeting and, compared to Cardiff’s approach, it wasn’t at all impressive. Cardiff had told us all they wanted to be the Manchester United of rugby and were signing lots of players. I tried to use my head and not be swayed by my heart. Staying with Beddau Youth was the easiest option but in the end I chose Pontypridd. Pontypridd had a better track record with youngsters coming through the youth team ranks. Some people in Beddau told me there was no point even going to Pontypridd for a trial, as I wouldn’t play any rugby. It was a bit of jealousy and narrow-minded thinking from a selection of naysayers but it served as motivation for me: I knew I was good enough. I have always been ambitious and believed in my ability. Going to the trial felt like a massive opportunity, I gave it my all and was selected.

Back then, there was no sense of serving an apprenticeship in professional rugby. It may have been professional in terms of being paid at senior level, but the set-up was still evolving. Now it has evolved there are academies and the players get great advice, but back then it was a very uncertain time. As I was doing my A-levels and getting a bursary I was fortunate, and the only real change when I joined Pontypridd after my GCSEs was that I trained there every Tuesday and Thursday with Gary Lucas and Mike Oliver instead of going to Beddau. The coaches weren’t professional, they had other jobs, and there wasn’t much conditioning at all, but they were great guys. To me it seemed as though there were really poor links between the seniors and the youth team at Pontypridd. We didn’t get any feedback from the senior coaches, although I think they were aware of us even if it didn’t always seem like it.

What I didn’t realise when I joined Pontypridd was that I would need to sing. Everyone had to learn a song. Gareth Turner, who played centre and was a great character, pretended to be Tina Turner and sang ‘Simply the Best’. We didn’t have a lot of music in my house, but when we went on holidays as children, we would go to Heathrow and ‘The Gambler’ by Kenny Rogers would always be on the cassette player. Listening to it over and over I learned all the words and I think Kenny would have been proud of my baritone voice. That song has stuck with me and is the only one I can call on if I have to get up to do a number. It was brilliant for getting everyone to know each other. After a few weeks when everyone knew your song you felt like you were performing to a packed arena as everyone on the bus belted it out.

That first season at Pontypridd in the youth team, in 1997/98, was one of the best and most enjoyable in my life. I played every game. There was a brilliant team spirit and on the way back from games in England at places such as Gloucester, we would all have a drink and a singsong on the journey home. Before every game, our coach Gary Lucas, who had a really gruff voice, would give a big passionate speech and he would always finish with the same line: ‘Come on boys, you can do it, I love you boys; I love you more than my wife.’ He also used to tell his son Garyn, who came to every match and now plays for Pontypridd RFC, to …‘behave or you can go shopping with your mother next week.’

We reached the latter stages of the Wales Youth Cup, but lost to Cardiff in the semi-final at the Arms Park. At the end of the season I was named Player of the Year. That season there were trials for the Wales Senior Schools team at Under-18 level. I was a year below Under-18 and was aware that it was a big ask to get selected, but the trials were all about impressing at every opportunity; both at the county games and during the gruelling weekend camps. I did enough to get selected and two games stand out for me: a county game in Pontyclun and another one for a Wales XV against London Counties. I played out of my skin. Even now I can remember how excited I felt and how desperate I was to do well and get picked. It seemed to spur me on when the stakes were high. It felt like being on autopilot sometimes when I was playing well.

We were due to play Scotland at Waterton Cross, the home of South Wales Police RFC, but they had to move the game to the nearby Brynteg School field. I was playing at number eight and Alix Popham was at number seven. The weather was absolutely terrible and the pitch was a mud bath, but we were brilliant. We were 27–0 up at half time and cruised home 54–0, scoring ten tries in the process. We broke the record for the biggest ever margin of victory by a Welsh schoolboys’ team. ‘Seldom can a Welsh eight have played as well in the 74-year history of schools rugby,’ wrote Huw Thomas, schools rugby correspondent for the Western Mail, afterwards. Our coach Wyn Evans didn’t smile much, but he looked happy then. The only bad thing that day was that the showers weren’t working properly after the game. We were covered in mud and absolutely freezing!

I played in the next game against France, which we also won, but the games came in blocks of two around the school holidays, so now we had a big break. We were all given a training programme to follow between the two blocks of games. My parents had bought a multi-gym, which they put in our garage. Our big goal was the penultimate game away to England at the United Services Ground in Portsmouth. Before school I would do weights or go running round our local field. I remember doing interval training in the early morning and getting some strange looks. I just wanted to do the best I could and being given a programme to follow for eight or so weeks was perfect for me. I followed it diligently. I loved it and really enjoyed striving for a goal. Building up to the England game, I felt like a boxer. I didn’t realise then, but that was the perfect metaphor.

We knew the game against England would be tough because they were very strong and had players everyone already knew would do go on to do well, such as Andrew Sheridan, David Flatman, Steve Borthwick, Alex Sanderson, Adam Balding, Andy Goode and James Grindall. We lost narrowly, 11–10, but the game wouldn’t be remembered for the play. England had 80 per cent of the possession and tried to batter us through their forwards; an approach that led one newspaper to describe the match as ‘one of the most violent schoolboys’ games ever.’ I had a fight with Sheridan, who was massive even then, and was given a yellow card. Afterwards I spoke to Alex Sanderson, who was a really nice guy and seemed pretty humble for England’s star man. He obviously never took the game at Portsmouth to heart as when I signed for Saracens years later, Alex gave me his spare room for my first week on the team.

We then played in Ireland against an Irish Schools team that contained Gordon D’Arcy and Paul O’Connell, who I’d later go on a Lions tour with. I was also nominated for the 1998 Mail on Sunday Welsh Rugby Bursary Award. I was 6ft 5in tall by this time and 15 stone and was often compared to Mervyn Davies, as he was the same size when he first played for Wales. The Wales Under-18 forward coach, Richard Jones, told the Mail on Sunday that I was ‘very much like the young Davies, quite gangly at the moment, but he’s got a good engine inside him and his work-rate is tremendous.’ Richard Jones rated me and told me so, which was great. Those were the sort of attributes that people often ascribed to me, which was flattering, but I’m not sure I took it all in. Adam Jones, the second row, won the £5,000 bursary, but John Bevan, the WRU’s Director of Coaching, was really encouraging and told me that I had ‘very good hand-eye coordination for a big lad.’

In May 1998, my brother David got married and later in the summer I went on a Crawshays youth tour to South Africa. The tour cost £1,000 and the organisers put up half. The other half of my fee was paid by an organisation called the Friends of Pontypridd, who paid £500 apiece towards the costs for Peter Burridge, an outside half at Ponty, and I to go. A teacher at school, Karen Crowley, also gave me some money to go on the tour, which was a lovely gesture. She was a former PE teacher and was pretty tough, but had a heart of gold and was very encouraging. It was a brilliant experience. We stayed at an Afrikaans school called Affies in Pretoria and got to go on safari and to Sun City. Robert Sidoli, Mark Jones and Adam Jones, the second row, were also there. We played four games at the Afrikanse Hoer Seunskool Festival in Pretoria and won them all.

The season had been incredible and the Pontypridd first XV coach Denis John told one local newspaper that the two youth players he was monitoring closest were Gareth Turner and me.

After the first season at Ponty Youth I was made captain, which was brilliant as I was still a year younger than everyone else. Ceri Sweeney transferred to Ponty Youth from Glyncoch for that season, having been involved with Wales Schools A team the year before. The biggest goal this season was the FIRA World Cup being staged in Wales. Wales had previously had separate schools and FIRA teams, but the WRU took over the FIRA XV and the qualifying age shifted from 1 September to 1 January. This was in line with England, Scotland and France (although not Ireland) and meant that players would be four months younger than had previously been the case. The team coach for the FIRA World Cup was John Bevan and the WRU director of rugby Terry Cobner came along to see the squad early in the process and explain how important this was going to be.

I had become a member of the Welsh Elite Academy, which was brilliant, but my season started badly when I was forced to miss the first two months of it because of an operation on my back. I was off school for six weeks and couldn’t play rugby until the New Year. That meant that I missed the first Wales friendly of the season in Romania, but I was made captain of the Pontypridd youth team that would go on to win the Wales Under-19 Challenge Cup against Newport, 32–15.

Although I was frustrated at being so inactive at the start of the season, I had been training with the first team a few times. The most nervous I have ever been in my whole career was before that training session with Pontypridd. These guys were legends, but I was lucky to have played cricket with Gareth Wyatt and Geraint Lewis and knew them a little. Although I didn’t really know the players – and was in awe of people like Neil Jenkins and Dale McIntosh, who we all knew as ‘Chief‘ – I didn’t feel out of place. There were some great characters in the first team and Neil Eynon, the prop, used to commentate on the games of touch we used to play and would give all the players names of famous players from the past. He christened me ‘Peter Brown’, the Scottish back-row forward from the 1970s.

1999 began brilliantly when I got a phone call on New Year’s Day from Dennis John. There had been some injuries over Christmas so on 2 January I would be on the bench the first XV, along with Ceri Sweeney, for a league match at the Talbot Athletic Ground against Aberavon. Pontypridd won 49–21 and although I never got onto the pitch, I remember sitting in the clubhouse afterwards, having a drink with Chief and the other first-team players and felt as though I was part of it. It was great.

I was picked to play for the Wales Schools XV against Australia. Gethin and Matthew Rees may have missed out at Under-16 level, but I was really pleased that we had all made the team against Australia at Bridgend. The Australians had thrashed Scotland 54–12 and made short work of us too, winning 56–10. It was a devastating result. Although it was true that we just hadn’t been good enough, Australia were awesome and George Smith was incredible. David Lyons was captain of that Aussie team as well, but missed our game through injury. I had reason to revisit my experiences of this game recently in the light of the Wales Under-20s drubbing at the hands of the Baby All Blacks. A resounding loss of 92-0 in the Junior World Cup is unacceptable and painful reading for anyone involved in Welsh rugby. Many questions have rightly been asked about how such a result can come about. It is important to remember, however, that sometimes these early losses can shape you as a player. After our thrashing at the hands of Australia, our coach told us that we could all forget about being professional rugby players and that we just weren’t going to make it. In retrospect, that team consisted of four future Welsh captains, Dwayne Peel, Gethin Jenkins, Mathew Rees and me, who have all become Lions and Grand Slam winners.

Around this time, the first of a lifetime of mentions of the footballer Michael Owen got aired in the media. ‘Meet the Michael Owen who wants to play for Wales’ was the headline in Wales on Sunday. As a Liverpool fan, I knew all about Michael Owen and I realised that I would just have to get used to it. According to my parents, I idolised Daley Thompson as a two-year-old and once recognized him in Cardiff on a day out. He was promoting Fabergé aftershave. A photographer was there who overheard me shouting his name and the next day I was in the newspaper with my hero. That was my first media appearance. I realised that I would get different ones now and that all I could do was my best on the pitch to get the good ones.

I got my first game with the Pontypridd first team on 27 January 1999. I will always remember that day because it was my father’s birthday. We took on Georgia at Sardis Road in a WRU Challenge Cup match. The Georgians were in Wales to gain experience and we won 69–7 in a floodlit match. I remember getting a 20-yard pass from Kevin Morgan and being really pleased to get my first touch until I got completely smashed by a big Georgian and the crowd let out a collective ‘Ooooooh!’

When the Wales team for the final warm-up match before the FIRA World Cup against Italy was announced, I was on the bench. Missing the start of the season had not helped and I was really frustrated, although probably not as frustrated as Matthew Griffin, who got injured the day before we played the Italians in Frascati. I replaced him in the team and took my chance when the pressure was on to perform. We won a really tough game – one that was significant for me because it was my last chance to impress before the World Cup – 13–5. I also managed to avoid getting into a scrape after the game. We went out for a few drinks and then I got in a cab back to the hotel with Jamie Robinson and Ceri Sweeney. Ceri decided to jump out before we got back as a few of the other players were staying out. While they were out on the town, an Italian tried to knife Michael Price, another player from Ponty Youth. When Michael tried to protect himself, he got knifed across the face and hands and some of our boys got locked up for the fight that started afterwards.

The FIRA World Cup was an incredible experience. Even now, I think that if this had been the peak of my career it would have been absolutely brilliant. Welsh rugby had been on a real downer since the summer of 1998, when the national team were thrashed 96–13 by South Africa at Loftus Versfield. If it hadn’t been for a late knock-on, we could even have gone down by 100 points. What everyone in Welsh rugby needed was a real lift and that was what the FIRA World Cup gave everyone. For Wales, because of the changes to the age barrier, this was a different group of lads to the Schools XV. We were all put up in a hotel in Cardiff together for twelve days. Adam Jones, the second row, was captain. Gethin missed out, controversially in our eyes, but Damian Adams, Ceri Sweeney, Jamie Robinson, Rhys Williams, Ryan Powell and Dwayne Peel were all in the squad and we just clicked.

The first game was against England at the Gnoll. The Welsh public supported the tournament from the first match and, although the match was live on television and it was just an Under-19 international, we still got a crowd of 5,000. That was one of the biggest crowds that I’d played in front of. The day before the match, England had lost fly half Andy Goode when his club side Leicester called him up to sit on the bench. Two minutes into the actual game, England lost their number eight, Jon Dunbar, who was sin-binned. Our pack was far better throughout, we were 27–0 up by the break and ended up scoring five tries to England’s one in a really good 39–7 win. Richard Johnson scored a few tries and played well and, reportedly, signed a big money professional contract with Neath during the tournament … and was given a car too. I think everyone was quite envious of him.

There were two other teams in our section: Argentina and Poland. Argentina had beaten Poland 55–11 in their opening pool three match and we had to play them next. When the game started in Bridgend, the gouging and general dirty play soon followed. We were being riled throughout, but were in front of our own crowd – there were 2,800 people at the Brewery Field, although it felt like a lot more – and we didn’t want to let ourselves, or the supporters down. One newspaper described the Argentines as ‘mean-spirited, negative and at times disgraceful’. None of our players retaliated and we won comfortably enough, 29–5. I felt like I was really starting to play well.

We were into the semi-finals and would have to go back to Bridgend to play South Africa, who had beaten France 33–24. This time, even though the game was again live on S4C Digital, the Brewery Field was sold out. A crowd of 8,000 was the biggest I had ever played in front of and the game was really memorable. The atmosphere was incredible: it would have been a career highlight for any player. Jean de Villiers and Schalk Brits played for South Africa, but we were awesome. Rhys Williams had an excellent game and both teams scored one try each. We were losing until, at the very end, we won a penalty. Ceri had hit an upright with an earlier conversion. The silence was incredible, but he scored this time. The match finished 10–10, which meant that the type of kicks that had been converted were used in a count back. Ceri’s penalty was ranked higher than South Africa’s drop-goal as it was considered that conceding a penalty meant a foul had been committed. We were through to the final. Years later, Schalk Brits would dispute the validity of the decision with me at Saracens.

We had matched Wales’ best-ever effort in a FIRA World Cup by reaching the final. Now, not only were we in the final, but we were also at home. The only problem was the opposition: we had to face the All Blacks, who had beaten Ireland 21–15 in the other semi-final. I had played really well in the semi-final and on the day of the final there was another big story about ‘Rugby’s Michael Owen’. The paper mentioned how much the other Michael earned at Liverpool and the £3,000 bursary I received from the Dragons Rugby Trust. However, the newspaper reckoned that I was better than Liverpool’s version! There was another write-up about me in the Daily Express.

Going to the final on the bus was unbelievable. Stradey Park was packed and the cars were parked up for miles outside the ground and the fans were cheering for us and singing. The New Zealand team for the final at Stradey Park included Rikki Flutey, Jerry Collins, Richie McCaw, Aaron Mauger and more stars of the future. The semi-final had been our pinnacle, a great one, but we were exhausted in the final and lost 24–0. The crowd of 12,000 there had little to shout about. Afterwards John Bevan said that we’d done our best and it was just one of those things: they were simply better than us. He was right, but we gave everything. Adam Jones told the Western Mail, ‘They were a credit to their nation. I couldn’t ask for any more.’ We couldn’t have given any more. To a man we had done our best.

It had been the most incredible 12 days of my life. We had gone from being in school or at work to having articles written about us in all the papers and our faces appearing on TV. Players got professional contracts; we had played against the best youth players in the world and we all felt ten feet tall. After the FIRA World Cup, Rugby World magazine named an all-star side of the best players in the tournament from Britain and Ireland. It was a sort of Junior Lions side and, although it was only a paper exercise, I was one of the fifteen players selected. After the World Cup, I got a few more first team matches at Pontypridd as injuries piled up. At the end of the season, I took my A-levels and applied to a do a maths degree at the University of Glamorgan. I couldn’t give the time to keep up with the work, so I switched to business studies at the end of the first year. It is definitely possible to study while playing rugby, but I had neither the foresight nor the commitment to do it and I left university after completing eighteen months of a business degree.

I didn’t have an official agent then, but I didn’t need one: I had Ceri Sweeney. I was offered a three-year deal with Pontypridd on £3,000 a year. I signed straightaway and was chuffed to do so. Ceri went in after me and was offered the same. He refused to sign, saying he couldn’t survive on that. So the club more than doubled his contract – and mine too as they felt that we should be on the same wages. Ceri was the best agent I’ve ever had and he didn’t even get his 10 per cent!

During this time, Pontypridd started to lose players. Neil Jenkins and Martyn Williams went to join Lynn Howells at Cardiff; Kevin Morgan went to Swansea and Dayfdd James went to Llanelli. Some of the older players retired but Lee Jarvis came back from Cardiff. Lee was a superb outside half who could and should have been a legend for Wales and had only left Pontypridd in the first place because Neil Jenkins also played in his position.

On top of all this change, a number of players picked up injuries during pre-season, including Chief, while Geraint Lewis was in the World Cup squad. They were my competition and I’d have to play really well to get into the team. I had started training for the new season as soon as the previous one had finished. A club trainer would have helped – there would have been someone to ask advice – but there was nothing like that available to me. I used bits and bobs of the information that I had been given at various times and although it required self-motivation, the hard work paid off.

A chance was opening up for me and in my first senior XV start of the season I scored a try in a 20–6 win over Canada and was named man of the match. I was delighted. As a young player it is vital to get an opportunity early on and show what you can do, so that coaches are prepared to pick you in the more important games. The local paper said ‘The Pontypridd Man of the Match was number 8 Michael Owen. The 18 year old, star of Wales’ youth World Cup campaign, was always in the thick of the action with his powerful running and superb ball handling and capped his display with a try’. I also played against Saracens in pre-season and remember getting absolutely smashed by François Pienaar, which hurt like hell. The club may have lost a host of players, but I felt we would still do OK. Lee Jarvis was coming back and was a genuine match-winner; and we also had Paul John, whose father Dennis had played with my dad, at scrum half. We had a number of mentally strong, competitive sportsmen. Matthew Lloyd was brilliant to me, giving me loads of advice and, with Chief on the sidelines through injury he exerted a huge influence on the team. His knees were shot, he could barely stand and he would always moan about training, but was brilliant during matches.

With Geraint Lewis away on World Cup duty with Wales, I started the first league game, away against Glasgow, and kept my place for the initial half a dozen fixtures. We won the first five only to lose the sixth in Llanelli. After the World Cup, when Wales had lost a group game to Samoa and then a quarterfinal to Australia, I lost my place. I could understand Geraint coming straight back into the team because he was a top player, but I felt I should have definitely stayed around the team. However, I wasn’t involved at all until the end of December. I crashed back to earth with a real thud. A week after playing for the first XV at Llanelli against many of the current Welsh team in a televised match, I was turning out for the Pontypridd youth team on a schools’ pitch in Maesteg.

Although I didn’t stay in the first team at Pontypridd, having just turned nineteen, I managed fourteen first XV games that season and also scored the odd try, including a real gift against Swansea, when Pontypridd won their first game at St Helen’s in twenty-seven years. One of the best was against Colomiers in the Heineken Cup, when I came off the bench. The atmosphere at the match was incredible because, the previous week, Pontypridd had played Colomiers in the Heineken Cup and their prop, Richard Nones, had been sent off for eye gouging. He was subsequently banned for two years afterwards. The Colomiers fans were really intimidating. They were throwing industrial toilet rolls at the dugout and holding giant cardboard forks as the French term for gouging is forkette. Nones even came on before the game to present a shirt to a young player, which stirred the crowd up even more.

Pontypridd had a really young side and when I came on after thirty minutes for the injured Geraint Lewis, we were already 33–0 down, but no one gave up. We scored three tries, I got one of them after a scrum against the head and, although we lost 38–21, I felt as though I’d stood up for myself and done well. Afterwards, Sven Cronk, who’d been gouged by Nones, came over to tell me how well I’d done by getting stuck in and not being intimidated. That meant a lot and gave me a lot of confidence.

Around this time, the Welsh coach, Graham Henry, named four teams for a Welsh trial. I was in team four with Ceri Sweeney and we played Team Three, which had players like Sonny Parker and Alix Popham. Everyone was talking about the new way ahead for Welsh rugby and whether the man they called the ‘Great Redeemer’ was the right guy. The big talk was whether Liam Botham would play for Wales and Henry’s decision to drop Scott Gibbs, Craig Quinnell and Dafyfdd James from Team One. I may have been in Team Four, but I was encouraged when Rob Howley named me in a newspaper as a player who could make a big impact in time for the 2003 World Cup. In a Six Nations’ guide, Henry did the same, but said I was someone who ‘needs to play’.

I was picked as a replacement for Wales Under-21. Alix Popham was the Under-21 captain and played in front of me. He wasn’t playing for Newport at the time but was still rated higher than me by the Welsh management, based on what they had seen previously. Just by being in the Pontypridd team I felt that I deserved to be ahead of him because I was proving myself each week. I played from the bench in four out of the five championship games but never got a start.

After the club’s brilliant start to the season Pontypridd went on to secure European qualification at Bridgend, a match during which I had to have twenty stitches put into a head wound that was inflicted by our Tongan hooker Feoa Vunipola when he tried to pick-and-go from a ruck that I was at the bottom of. In the same game I set up the winger Geraint Lewis for the winning try with a chip ahead. We beat Llanelli 29–12 in the final game of the season and I was named Man of the Match.

That summer I was chosen to go on a Welsh development tour of Canada. At one point, there was talk that as many as eight Pontypridd players would make the cut but, in the end, only Ceri and I were selected. This was a very different experience for me as the squad contained a real mix of young and experienced players. I remember feeling a bit out of it, on the fringes at times. Some of the management treated you a bit differently on that tour, probably because there were so many older and established players, and I felt on the periphery of things as the second youngest player there. Graham Henry was also on the trip, but he remained pretty detached from us, just observing, and when he did speak to us he was quite harsh.

We played five games and I started the first game in Newfoundland against Eastern Canada. I was moved from number eight into the second row and played in a 32–17 win over Young Canada in Alberta, too. I preferred number eight, but Henry wanted me to play more at blindside. The team won all five games, but I didn’t play against Canada A, which was the main game. We pretty much went coast to coast and the tour was an amazing experience, I was still only nineteen years old and I wanted to be more involved. When I got back, my mother had saved a cutting from the Daily Mirror. Graham Henry had written a piece about the tour, mentioning all the players. According to him, I needed to work on a couple of things but had a top attitude. It’s funny looking back at that trip. You could eat whatever you wanted and go up and order anything you wanted, with the WRU picking up the bill, but I can’t remember doing any weights. It’s totally different today and, with hindsight, it was a way of doing things that created a terrible culture, but that was just how Welsh rugby was back then. There was a massive drinking culture on that trip, too. In short, it was all a bit of a holiday, but the boys who were partying hardest were still somehow managing to play the best. Coming away from the tour, I felt that the coaches didn’t appreciate what I could do on the pitch.

That summer, John Bevan left the WRU to take a job at Monmouth School, but wrote me a letter. Here’s what he said:

I hope you have enjoyed your time in the academy and have taken on board the message that we are sending out, i.e.: that hard work, commitment and ambition coupled with a good attitude is the only path to take. There are obstacles along the way, but I think you are of the calibre to overcome them.

When I reported back to Sardis Road for the start of the 2000/01 season I was determined to turn around the negatives of how I felt I had been viewed on that tour and was determined to play better than ever. For a second season in a row, some of Pontypridd’s senior players had left, including the club’s only current internationals, Geraint Lewis, who went to Swansea, and Ian Gough, who returned to Newport.

We had a chance to win our first Heineken Cup game away from Sardis Road when we went to Pau. One of our supporters even had a banner that read ‘Welcome to the House of Pain’, but we blew it, losing the match 12–9, when we should have won. The French team were putting in high tackles, but I had a good game against a young Imanol Harinordaquay. Al Charron, the Canadian international who played for Pau, was very complimentary about me. So was Graham Henry, but he still wasn’t sure if I should be in the back row or second row. Richie Collins played me at number eight at Pontypridd, but Henry still seemed to think I should be a lock.

We lost the return against Pau, beat Glasgow and had a brilliant 18–11 win over Leicester at Sardis Road, but we still crashed out of the Heineken Cup after losing all our away games. In the return at Welford Road – which was a week before my twentieth birthday- Ponty pushed Leicester all the way, losing 27–19. After the match, Richie Collins told the press that I would play for Wales inside the next three years. Dennis John then weighed into the argument over where I should play, asking people just to ‘let me play’. A decision, he said, on where my best position was, was still a year away. The newspapers were full of the difference of opinion between Collins and Henry over my position, but all I could do was to keep my head down and do my best – in whatever position I was selected.

I was then included alongside my Ponty team-mates Robert Sidoli, Brett Davey and Sonny Parker, who had decided to qualify on residency and play for Wales in a Welsh development squad for a game against the United States at Neath. Brett Davey had a great game at The Gnoll, scoring twenty-one points and I managed to score a try just before half time. Brett was an amazing player, a real showman. I would have loved to have seen him play for Wales despite his lack of pace and physicality, as I know he would have relished playing on the big stage. He was written off because of his lack of pace, instead of being selected because of what he could do.

Craig Quinnell was our captain that day, Gavin Henson also started and we won 46–20. After the game, our coach Leigh Jones told the Western Mail: ‘I was very impressed with Sidoli, Lloyd and Owen. I think those three could be looking at A or senior representation this season.’

Everything seemed to be happening at breakneck speed, so quickly that I couldn’t always take it in. I had to make sure I wasn’t distracted by all this discussion over when – or if – I would make the senior team and in what position I should play. After the USA game, Leigh Jones and Geraint John wrote a very encouraging report, which said I had ‘grown considerably in stature (mentally) since the development tour’. The report signed off with: ‘Good team man, keep up the hard work Mike. I’m sure you’ll get what you desire.’ I hoped they were right.

When the Under-21 Six Nations started, the newspapers were very interested in Gavin Henson, who had not played consistently so far, but Swansea’s fly half Arwel Thomas had just been ruled out for the rest of the season so he had his chance. Gavin was very talented, very quiet and a good player who could do exceptional things. We played England at Sardis Road in the first Six Nations game and Gavin was preferred ahead of Ceri – a decision that was imposed on the Wales Under-21 staff by the senior management – and partnered Ryan Powell at half-back.

Wales had beaten England in the previous two Under-21 fixtures. I had missed the previous win, but now I would start. So would Gethin, who had a good match and this season really saw him start to emerge as a top player. I scored a try, fly-kicking a loose ball 30 metres down into the corner before I touched down. The crowd all started singing, ‘Olé! Olé! Olé! Olé! Ponty! Ponty!’ It was awesome! Wales did it again, winning 27–12. Gavin scored seventeen points and Swansea’s Matthew Brayley was Man of the Match.

We beat Scotland in our next game, 31–18, with Gavin scoring a try, three penalties, two conversions and a drop-goal. Beddau’s Geraint Liddon also got capped in this match, coming on for Gethin.

Playing for the Under-21s was great fun. Ceri, Gethin, Geraint Liddon, Damian Adams and I used to travel down together to Llanelli and Swansea, where we used to train, together. We all shared the driving and when it was my turn I would drive my club car, which may sound really flash, but it was a Blue Vauxhall Corsa, which I struggled to fit into! Ceri used to come to my house so he would sit in the front for the hour or so journey with three big forwards in the back. It used to drive Gethin mad and they nearly came to blows over it, which was hysterical to watch. They’ve clashed regularly throughout their careers, during and after matches, even in card games! And although they just seem to rub each other up the wrong way, they remain good friends.

In the Welsh/Scottish League, Pontypridd were doing OK and I was playing regularly, but we looked likely to miss out on Heineken Cup rugby for the first time in seven years. I had two years left on my contract, but Newport were interested in buying me out of it, reportedly as a replacement for their South African number eight, Gary Teichmann, who was due to retire at the end of that season.

The newspapers claimed that Newport’s owner Tony Brown wanted to sign Nathan Budgett from Ebbw Vale, but that he had wanted too much in wages and that I was a cheaper option. Richie Collins was adamant that I wasn’t leaving Ponty and, for all Newport’s money, I was happy to stay – things were going well for me and I loved every minute of it. I was playing well and really pleased when I won the club’s Supporter’s Player of the Year trophy after being named Man of the Match in six games by the supporters, who were brilliant to me. I was Player of the Year, even though I had only played a career total of forty-seven first XV games. I even had a local schoolboy from Beddau write to me. He played for Beddau and was doing a project on famous people and had to get a signed photo for it – and he chose me.

When Pontypridd lost 22–21 to Neath at Sardis Road – after a last-second drop-goal from the South African Greg Miller – it meant we would definitely miss out on the Heineken Cup and instead had to settle for the second-tier European Challenge Cup, then known as the Parker Pen. At the end of the season, Will James went back to England’s West Country and joined Plymouth Albion. Lee Jarvis went too, joining Neath. Lee had missed a kick in a crucial game against Bridgend and some of the supporters were giving him a hard time, claiming he had missed on purpose so that Neath could qualify for the Heineken Cup, but that was nonsense.

My season finished with a Welsh development tour of Japan, which left at the end of May. I had never visited Japan and thought this was a really exciting place to go. My parents came over to watch me play. The Lions were also touring in Australia and our squad contained the best players left in Wales. It was led by the Cardiff coach Lyn Howells. We all got a real surprise in the first match, when Suntory, the strongest Japanese club side, beat us 45–41. The next game was against a Japanese Select XV and I got on for about six minutes. I was gutted! I was given no chance to stake a claim for the main team, even though Howells had said that everyone would get a chance to show what they could do before selecting the test team.

Wales won the first test against Japan, with one of my peers, Andrew Lloyd, who was capped at Under-16 level alongside me, playing at six, scoring a try and winning rave reviews. I felt as though one of my rivals had got ahead of me. Although Andy’s a lovely fella, I was gutted and really envious. The tour didn’t get any better for me when I was selected against a Pacific Barbarians team that had players like the All Blacks’ Graeme Bachop, Walter Little and Aaron Pene playing. The Welsh team selected had just a dozen caps! We lost 36–16. It was really tough in the heat, humidity and rain and I got pulled off after sixty minutes and felt that I had let myself down.

I really hated that tour. It was a thirty-eight-man squad, far too big for the trip, and at times I felt like Craig Quinnell’s stunt double. Craig couldn’t train, but played in all the games. I was the reverse. I could train, but never got a chance to play. It was very frustrating and, also at times, some of the players seemed a bit aloof. But that is what happens sometimes on these sorts of tours; they were just concerned with their own stuff and completely oblivious to how young players like me were feeling. After this experience, and others like it, I always tried to make a big effort to include new or young squad members to help them settle and to feel part of it. Funnily enough, one of the people who seemed most aloof was Jamie Ringer: he came across as a fly boy with highlights, but I later got to know him when we played together at the Dragons and, despite his peroxide streaks, he is a brilliant guy and good company. I just got the wrong impression of him on that trip.

People will tell you that going on tours like that is good experience but, in my opinion, that is only the case if the coaching staff believe you are good enough to be there on merit. I was really fed up after that trip. I have never enjoyed being in a squad when I was not in the team and playing. I would love to go back to Japan now to try and get a better appreciation of the place. One valuable lesson I learnt on that trip was to always try on your kit before you go away. I didn’t and at one of the functions we had to wear our issued chinos and shirts. I unwrapped my chinos and put them on but could barely do them up. I looked like an extra from Saturday Night Fever when we went to visit the UK Ambassador in Japan.

After the frustration of Japan, I came home and proposed to Lucy on our holiday in Cuba and in August 2001 we had an engagement party. Pre-season training had started and I was raring to go. Pontypridd still had some experienced players, like ‘The Chief’, Paul John, Gareth Wyatt and Matthew Lloyd. My challenge was to be as good as them – even if, still, no one was quite sure if I was a back row or second row – so that I continued to play every week. During the season Pontypridd had brought in the Fijian international fly half Nicky Little, Paul was captain and we had what Jonathan Davies in the Daily Mirror described as the ‘best spirit in Wales’. We won our first game against big-spending Bridgend, but then lost six in a row.

The newly appointed Pontypridd director of rugby, Clive Jones, came to watch us play in the European Shield away at Béziers. He observed how things were done and spoke to some of the players. After the game, he tore a strip off pretty much everyone and said that players would be leaving the club, as they weren’t up to it. Everyone was scared it would be them and you couldn’t help feeling pretty paranoid. Edinburgh, away, on 20 October was Richie’s last game in charge. We went home after that game and that was the last we saw of him. He had been a policeman and had gone straight from playing to coaching. He had been there for two and a bit seasons, but the reality was that we were just bobbing along. I was grateful to Richie for giving me my shot in the first team but Pontypridd needed a new coach.

The club’s major sponsor was Buy As You View, who had been involved with the club for a while and had then stepped up their commitment and involvement with the club. Gareth Thomas stayed as chief executive, but the club made a great move when they brought in Clive Jones. He, almost single-handedly, changed everything about the club and created a healthy fear among the players, which put everyone on their toes and brought the best out of us. He reorganised the schools programme and got us out in the community. Most importantly, though, he gave us a dream and a vision for the future. Clive may not have been popular, but he was very effective and was one of the best people I have worked with. It is a real shame that he hasn’t been more involved at the top level of Welsh rugby. He would have got things done and changed many of the aspects that weren’t working as well as they could have been.

He appointed Lyn Howells as head coach and Steve ‘Ritaz’ Richards, from Neath, as fitness coach. Lyn had accumulated a great deal of experience with Wales and Cardiff and was exactly what we needed. He created a really tough environment. Ritaz was brilliant; all of a sudden we had organised training programmes and loads of discipline. I developed a love of training that I hadn’t had previously due to his enthusiastic approach to coaching us. We did loads of running and would train in a host of different venues. The forest above the ground became a favourite venue for intervals, hill runs and time trials. He’d call us in for extra individual training at the club to do sled and speed work. We would all train together at Porth YMCA, which was pretty decrepit, and also box against each other and do circuit training. We climbed Pen-y-fan mountain together and went running on the Merthyr Mawr sand dunes. In one session there we warmed up with a ten-minute run before doing some sand-dune runs. We had two Tongan players, Feoa Vunipola and Ngalu Tau, who were lovely guys and very powerful, but not the best when it came to endurance. At the end of the ten-minute run we were getting ready for the session and noticed that the Tongans were missing. Ritaz had to go and find them.

All of this helped create an amazing team spirit. What changed everything was that ten or twelve of the players, all of whom came from the Pontypridd area and had played for the club for a long time, had a huge passion for the club. We loved Pontypridd and the new coaching team started to bring the best out of us. We developed a good driving line-out, a good scrum, superb defence and had two powerful centres in Sonny Parker and John Bryant, who played some outstanding rugby. The new regime got rid of the dead wood and that sent a message. We were expected to play on and to train on through any minor bumps. The way we prepared was tough and uncompromising and you had to work really hard to survive. It worked for us to great effect.

Around this time, Lucy and I bought our first house – in Church Village – and, shortly afterwards, Lucy fell pregnant. I was twenty-one and Lucy was twenty, so it was a bit sooner than we had planned, but we were both really happy and this period provided some of the happiest times of our lives. Lucy transferred to the University of Glamorgan, from Swansea University, to complete her law degree. I used to train in the morning with Ponty and again in the evening. During the day I used to pop home for a few hours and Lucy and I would spend some time together, sharing in the joy of awaiting the birth of our first child.

A few of the Ponty players got picked for Wales A in the autumn, but I wasn’t one of them. Andy Powell was picked ahead of me, based on his performances for Newport. He struggled when he played for Wales A though, and they didn’t have a great campaign. In the meantime, during the Autumn Internationals at Ponty we had a mini pre-season, which set us up for the rest of the season and the challenges that lay ahead. At Christmas time, we played Newport at home. They were a mature side and taught us a bit of a lesson. The day after the game, Clive Jones called us in and again told us that being bullied like that was unacceptable for Pontypridd RFC. We didn’t like hearing it, but it had the desired effect. After that point it never happened again and we went from strength to strength.

Since the new management had come in I had been playing as a second row and the club signed Glen Remnant, a Kiwi, to play at number eight. He did not make as much of an impact as they had expected him to do and was one of the very few people I have met during my career who I can honestly say I didn’t like. Gareth Wyatt told Lyn Howells at a function that he should pick me at number eight. Lyn listened, picked me in the back row and from Christmas onwards, I played pretty much at number 8 for the rest of the season.

I also got picked for the Wales A squad during the Six Nations and had my first experience with Mike Ruddock, who was coach. I was playing well at the time and Mike called me to explain that I would not start against Ireland in the first game of the campaign. Alix Popham, who had played for Wales A the year before, but who was not playing at Newport at the time, would start instead. Ruddock’s explanation was that he was sticking with the players who had done well for him before. That is certainly how he worked at the Dragons and with Wales. Wales lost 55–22 to Ireland, however. Geraint Lewis and Alix Popham were both dropped from the back row after that match. I think that was Geraint’s last involvement with Wales. He was a really skilful back rower who could pass and kick like an outside half and probably deserved better.

I was selected for the next game against France, but had a bout of flu in the run-up to the match. Colin Charvis and Brett Sinkinson both played and their superb work-rate and intensity really made an impression on me. That was the most I had enjoyed being in a Welsh senior squad up to that point. I was selected at number eight. Pontypridd’s Gareth Wyatt was playing, as was Mefin Davies, who was captain. I took out all the frustration that had built up – over the previous tours, over the flu – in that game. By the end of that season for Wales A, half the pack was from Ponty and half from Neath. All the players were down to earth and humble and I loved every minute of playing for Wales A.

Before the France game, the new senior coach, Steve Hansen, came down to tell us that we were all starting with a clean slate. I was determined to make my mark. We beat France 17–6 and restricted them to a couple of penalties. I managed to win good ball at the lineout, controlled the back of the scrum and did well in the loose. Another good day at the Arms Park, I had made a good start to my senior international career.

After I’d signed that first contract with Ceri Sweeney, I got talking to Dai Thomas, the physio, in the pub at the end of my first season, about contracts. It was chat about contracts being fair and being paid what you deserved and it led to the club moving me straight from a junior contract onto a standard playing contract in 1999. Around this time I got the Vauxhall Corsa, which was sponsored by a local garage in Llantrisant, but when I signed my second contract in 2001, the Buy as You View owner Bernard Jones leased me a Mercedes with my name on the side. It was an unbelievable car, a Mercedes coupe CLK compressor. Bernard handed out a Mercedes to five players, including Gareth Wyatt and Robert Sidoli. He told us that we were the future, that he wanted us to make something of the club and that Buy As You View were in it for the long haul. That was typical of Bernard Jones. He was a self-made millionaire and was a hugely impressive man while at the same time remaining genuine and generous. He always used to tell me that I was going to captain Wales. After we won the Grand Slam in 2005, I phoned him up to chat about his foresight on this. He had also played his part in that Grand Slam success by sponsoring the new gym at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel, where we trained.

Until Pontypridd won the Welsh Cup in 1996, the club had not won a major official trophy. Richie Collins had been part of that team and they went on to win the Welsh Premier League the following year. The club hadn’t won any major honours since, but in 2001/02, we reached two finals: the Welsh Cup and the Parker Pen.

In the Welsh Cup we had played against a strong Cardiff team in the semi-finals. The match was played at the Millennium Stadium, it was a great game and was hailed as the type of game needed to be played regularly if Wales were to progress. We won 35–21 and all of a sudden Ponty were being hailed as one of the top teams in Wales. We were through to the final to play against Llanelli, who were going well in the European Cup. It would be a really tough match-up, but although they were better than us for large parts of the game, with Scott Quinnell particularly impressing, Ceri Sweeney played brilliantly at ten, controlling the game with his kicking and pinning Llanelli back. Lyn had put a huge amount of work into our kicking game and this really helped Ceri. Brett Davey was also superb and kicked a late penalty and scored all of our points in a 17–15 victory. We went back to the clubhouse at Ponty and celebrated with our fans. It was a great day! Off the field, on the back of this success, each of the team was honoured with a special accolade that is a big part of the Welsh rugby culture – a personalised Grogg in your image. Everyone in Welsh rugby knows how unique it is to have one and I have been lucky enough to have several made over the subsequent years, each taking pride of place next to my Welsh caps in my parents’ home. I always enjoy going to down to the Grogg shop as all of the family are so warm and welcoming and the shop itself is a treasure trove of Groggs from iconic people and moments in rugby.

Back on the field, the Parker Pen may, initially, have seemed like a step down from the club’s previous adventures in the Heineken Cup, but we were playing really well under Lyn Howells and reached the quarterfinals, where we had to play Saracens. They had a team that contained players like Jannie de Beer and Tim Horan and no one gave us a chance. Before the game, Chief told the press that although Saracens might have a team of superstars, Pontypridd did as well – it was just that no one knew it yet. We all played well. I scored a try in the first half and we were winning 17–15 deep into injury time, when Saracens won a last-minute penalty and a chance to win the game. The entire crowd was silent as their fly half, Jannie de Beer, who scored five drop-goals against England in the 1999 World Cup quarterfinal, lined up his kick. The clock read eighty-two minutes. I later found out that Lyn Howells had gone to the toilet because he couldn’t bear to watch, but we all had to stand there and watch. We erupted with joy when de Beer failed. Ponty were in the semi-final. Of that Pontypridd XV, ten players went on to win full caps, proving Chief right. The players and staff celebrated wildly at the final whistle. I remember seeing Dai Thomas, our physio, running around like a mad man. I ran over to him and gave him a big bear hug. We had such a great time coming back on the bus and were still on a high the following Monday. Dai, however, was conspicuous by his absence. I asked around and discovered that he was laid up and in bed: it seems that I squeezed him a little too hard in my excitement and popped a few of his rib cartilages. Funnily enough, Dai avoided me at full time in future wins.

After that game, the Saracens manager Francois Pienaar graciously said he thought we could take the trophy outright. Before we could think of that, however, we had to win our semi-final against London Irish, which was to be played at a neutral venue. The Kassam Stadium in Oxford was the choice and loads of fans came down the M4 from Pontypridd. The atmosphere at the ground was brilliant, full of Pontypridd fans who had made the journey down and the match was superb, too. London Irish were riding high in the Premiership at the time and had just won the English Cup. Like us, they didn’t have many stars, but worked really hard for each other. The moment of the match came on about sixty minutes with London Irish playing really well and coming back at us strongly. Their player-coach and talisman, Brendan Venter, ran as hard as he could at Johnny Bryant, who put in a Chief-like tackle on him. It gave all of our players a huge lift and remains one of the most inspiring acts I ever experienced in my career. When you watch the game and see Nick Kelly, our unsung flanker, next to John in the defensive line jumping up and down like a lunatic you can see what it meant to all of us. We weren’t going to lose from that point onwards and eventually went on to win a great game. Games like this were putting us on the map as players.

We returned to the Kassam Stadium for the final against Sale Sharks and, once again, the ground was full of Pontypridd fans. We would get 3,000 or 4,000 for most club matches at Sardis Road, but for really big games there would be 8,000 or even 10,000. Pontypridd were the first Welsh team to reach the European Challenge Cup final and, after Cardiff in 1996, during the early days of European rugby, only the second Welsh team to reach any European final. Getting off the bus to be welcomed by the amazing Ponty fans was a really emotional moment: it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and, more importantly, made us feel invincible as a team.

It wasn’t to be, however. We were 15–3 up at half-time, but let our lead slip and ended up losing 25–22. We made two or three errors during the match that we hadn’t made all season and lost a game that we should have won. This meant we had missed out on Heineken Cup qualification for the second successive year after we had left ourselves too much to do in the league after our bad start to the season. It was a shame as we were probably becoming one of the best Welsh teams. Afterwards, the Ponty fans, who had been brilliant throughout, sang ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Losing was gutting, but that song gave us all a really big lift and all those fans showed just what strength of feeling there is for the club in the Valleys.

Despite the disappointments we had suffered against Sale and in the league, however, the season had been an unbelievable one for both Pontypridd and for me and it finished in the best possible way. I was called into the senior Wales squad for that season’s Six Nations game against Scotland as cover for Nathan Budgett. He subsequently recovered and I went back down to the A team, but at the end of the season, the senior team were going to South Africa for a two-test tour and I was determined to be a part of it.

Wales had endured a miserable Six Nations campaign, beating only Italy and being thrashed 50–10 by England at Twickenham. This was a difficult period for Wales; they weren’t doing well and the lack of forward planning and muddled thinking was characterised by Iestyn Harris’s crazy transfer from rugby league. Iestyn was a great league player and would do well at union, but he was signed as the answer to all of Wales’ problems. It was a ridiculous quick-fix solution: no single player could make that much of a difference. Iestyn did pretty well for Wales in a struggling side, especially considering he was thrown in at the deep end and would have got better, but he could never fulfil the WRU’s hopes for him – no single player could.

There was a chance that Steve Hansen might bring in some fresh faces. After the last Six Nations game, 999 players had played for Wales and if Hansen chose an uncapped player during the South Africa tour, he would become the 1,000th player to win a cap for Wales.