Читать книгу Open Side: The Official Autobiography - Sam Warburton - Страница 11

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Saturday, 6 June 2009. Wales v USA

The USA kick off, Ryan Jones catches it, is hit in the tackle – and is knocked out. Literally in the first minute. I’m on the bench as back-row cover. If Ryan comes off, I’m on. Robin turns to me. ‘Get ready.’

Ryan doesn’t come off immediately. He stays on, hoping that if he’s out there long enough he’ll recover. Am I coming on or not? Ryan doesn’t look too great, but it’s not my call.

Thoughts whirl through my head. What do you want? To come on at 50, like you presumed you would? Or now, before you have time to think about it? Are you ready? Doesn’t matter. You have to be ready when they need you.

With 19 minutes gone, Robin and the medics have seen enough. Ryan’s groggy and not playing anywhere like he usually does.

Off he comes. On I go. There’s more than an hour left to play.

This is it. I’m a Wales player now, and no one can take that away from me.

2007. I’m playing for Glamorgan Wanderers when I tear my hamstring. It keeps me out of the whole of Wales’s 2008 Under-20s Six Nations campaign. It’s pretty much the first time I’ve ever been injured, certainly badly enough to keep me out for a match or two. It feels like the end of the world, watching my body waste away while I have to rest and let nature take its course. As if all the good work I’ve put in so far has been for nothing.

Injury #1. It won’t be my last, not by any means.

2008. ‘You should get an agent.’ That’s what I hear time and again. A couple of the other academy boys have already got people interested in them, and of course a lot of the senior Blues players have them already. I get a few names recommended to me, and a few calls from agents sounding me out. They’re all slick and have the sales patter down to a tee, but I bide my time. I want an agent who’s out for me more than for himself, who’s going to look to manage my career in the long term rather than just getting as much money as possible up front.

Then I meet Derwyn. He used to be a player himself – 19 Welsh caps and more than 150 games for Cardiff – so he knows the system and what the game demands.

‘What do you want to achieve?’ he asks. I’ve heard him ask this of some of the other boys at the academy too, and they all answer the same way. I want to turn professional. I want to play regional. I want to play for Wales.

‘I want to be the best 7 in the world,’ I say.

He doesn’t laugh or make a face. Just says he can help me do exactly that.

I sign with him. It’s one of the best moves I’ll ever make.

First day training with the senior Blues squad. I grew up with a Blues season ticket: watch them at the Arms Park on Friday night, play for Whitchurch on Saturday morning. All that time, I’d dreamed about making the jump from one to the other. And now I’ve done it.

You’re good enough to be here, I tell myself. They wouldn’t have signed you if they didn’t think you were up to it.

‘Hello, Sam.’

It’s Martyn Williams: club captain, Wales legend, and my rugby hero. Also current holder of the Blues and Wales number 7 shirt. He was one of the main reasons why I wanted to play rugby. I remember watching the 2005 Six Nations and not a game would go by where he wouldn’t get man of the match or score a try. He was absolutely amazing.

He shakes my hand – the very first person to do so at the club – and takes me under his wing.

This is one of the bittersweet things about rugby, that you can end up competing for the same position as someone you idolised as a schoolboy, and maybe even usurping them. Right now, that’s a way off, but it won’t be for long.

And maybe Martyn sees it before I do. Later, he’ll tell me: ‘I knew you were going to take my spot as soon as you walked in. I saw you training and I knew, Christ, I haven’t got long left here.’

September. I’m feeling good. I might have missed the Under-20s Six Nations, but I was back in the side – captaining the side, in fact – for the summer Junior World Cup, where we reached the semi-final. I’ve just signed for the Blues, my first pro contract. It’s the last pre-season game, and I’m playing well.

Then I go over on my shoulder. It’s weird, because there’s no pain, but when I press the bone it bounces.

You’ve detached your collarbone, the physios say. The ligaments have gone round the ACJ, the acromioclavicular joint. It doesn’t hurt because there’s no nerve damage there. But you have to let it heal.

You’ve also got a hairline fracture of the knee, which will need an operation, so this is as good a time to do it as any.

How long?

Five months.

Five months?!

Injury #2.

The Blues boys are very sympathetic. They put Natasha Bedingfield’s I Bruise Easily – or Warby’s Song, as it’s now known – on the gym stereo at full volume.

According to the Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Clearly no injury, no matter how bad, is on the same scale as a genuine bereavement, but the same five stages apply in both cases.

Denial kicks in more or less the moment I get injured. It isn’t that bad. The pain will wear off soon. I didn’t even fall that badly. How can I be injured when I’m in such good condition?

Once the medical staff have made their diagnosis, that’s when anger kicks in. This is so unfair. Someone else will come into the team, take my place and play so well that I’ll never get it back. I’ve got all this energy and I have to sit here like a little old man. It’s all I want to do, play rugby. Is that too much to ask? Oh – and it hurts. It really hurts.

I can’t stay angry forever, though. The anger subsides and gives way to rationalisation, which brings with it bargaining. If I do all my rehab, then I’ll get back to where I was. If only I can get back in time for this match, then I don’t mind missing a few less important ones further down the line. I’ll swap this cruciate ligament injury for a couple of ankle strains.

And when the bargaining doesn’t work, which of course it doesn’t, that’s when the depression comes. I’m stuck on my own in the gym while the rest of the boys are training and playing. I’m on the outside of the squad looking in, part of it but not part of it. Sportsmen don’t like injury, because injury means weakness, and when they see it they move away in case it infects them too. Every day is such a slog. I’m not making progress quickly enough.

But I won’t be a pro player for very long if I let the depression and moping linger. This is where the acceptance comes in. Everyone gets injured. There are always silver linings to things. I can work on different aspects of my fitness. I can take a mental break from the relentless grind.

These stages don’t always happen in strict sequence, they don’t all last the same amount of time, and they won’t remain constant throughout my career. Right now, when I’m still young and inexperienced, the anger and frustration last longer and feel more acute. Later on, when I’m more used to being injured and more secure in my place in the team, I’ll be able to get to acceptance much more quickly.

Friday, 3 April 2009. My first game for the Blues is a Magners League fixture up in Edinburgh. Early April, a bit of a nothing match on most fronts. We’re mid-table only six weeks from the end of the season, and we’ve rested two-thirds of our first team ahead of the Heineken Cup quarter-final next week. The match is nothing to write home about: one of those stop-start affairs with no real fluency. Edinburgh win 16–3.

A bit of a nothing match for everybody but me, that is. I’m excited to play, of course, but I’m still only 20 and it shows. It’s not that I play badly; more that I’m not strong enough. I’ve never played against people of this calibre before, and I feel a bit out of my depth. I’m used to being among the most physically imposing players on any team, and it’s a shock to find myself being muscled off the ball time and again. My opponents are gnarly and grizzled; they know all the tricks, all the body positions, all the little niggles out of the ref’s sight. I’m a greenhorn.

There’s only one solution, the same one there’s always been. Work. Work harder. Work smarter.

I’ve only played a handful of games for the Blues when I get the call-up. The call-up, that is: the Wales summer tour to Canada and the USA.

It feels both weird and entirely normal. Weird, in that I’m still only 20 and pretty inexperienced at senior level; but normal, in that if I’m going to be the best 7 in the world then I have to start playing for my country sooner or later.

It’s the first time I’ve ever flown business class. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop: the seats, the films, the food. All the way over, I keep sneaking a peek at the official tour guide, and my head shot in it. I try to act cool. Not sure how well I succeed.

Four years ago, men like Dwayne Peel and Ryan Jones were playing for the Lions against the All Blacks, and I was watching them on TV on Saturday mornings. Now they’re sitting alongside me. For them, this tour’s a step down from what they’re used to. For me, it’s just the opposite. I remind myself that they were in my position once: the newbie, the hopeful.

I keep my head down, as far as possible. I don’t know many people, I’m conscious that I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m also feeling homesick. It’s only a two-week tour, but when you’ve spent all your life living either at home or within half a mile of it, that’s a long time to be several thousand miles away.

I sit in the team room and watch what the others are doing, looking to pick up pointers as to how senior pros handle themselves and prepare for matches. Be like a sponge. Soak it all up.

Saturday, 30 May. Our first match is against Canada. I’m a sub, which is always much harder than starting. When you’re starting, you know your timings and you can work backwards off them. When you’re a sub, all that’s out of the window. You might be on in the first minute, or the fiftieth, or not at all. If you use an energy gel, when do you take it? Too early or too late, and it won’t be effective. The starting XV have first dibs on strapping and so on in the dressing-room, which is of course entirely right, but it does mean that the subs can feel rushed in their own preparations. Everything’s a little bit out of sync when you’re a sub, basically.

We make reasonably heavy weather of the game. At one stage, not long after half-time, it’s 16–16, and we have to work hard to get more than one score ahead and close it out 32–23. All through the second half I’m waiting for coach Robin McBryde to give me the nod. There are seven of us on the bench, and one by one they go on until it’s just me and Nicky Robinson left. Canada have emptied their bench, but we’re still sitting there like lemons.

Two minutes left, and the game looks safe. Come on, I think. Give me a runout. Even if I don’t touch the ball or make a tackle, at least I’ll have got it over with. Good or bad, long or short, it doesn’t matter.

For almost 80 minutes I’ve been on edge, warming up now and then, trying not to get ahead of myself but still being ready for anything.

It never happens. The final whistle goes, and I’m still on the bench. What a comedown. After all that, what a massive anti-climax. I feel like crying. I’ve got so much energy that I could run round the pitch non-stop for all of those 80 minutes I didn’t get to play.

That night, on the phone to Mum, I do cry. I let all my frustration flow out while she listens and does her best to comfort me.

‘Mum,’ I say, ‘can you put Ted on?’

Ted’s my dog. He’s a rough collie, and he’s named after Teddy Sheringham, one of my Spurs heroes. He’s very vocal, and he likes to talk to me: howling and woofing and barking when I make noises. His favourite sounds are the theme tune to Coronation Street and the sound of an ice-cream van, so I sit in my room in Toronto and sing these down the phone to him. Ted howls them back to me, which makes me start crying all over again.

Saturday, 6 June. One week later. We’re playing the USA at Toyota Stadium in Chicago. Again I’m on the bench, and I’m thinking that if I don’t get on this time I’m going to explode. Surely they’ll bring me on? What would be the point of taking me all the way to North America and not giving me any game time?

Eight and a half thousand miles away, though I’m only very dimly aware of it, the British and Irish Lions are playing Free State on their tour of South Africa.

Here in Chicago, the USA kick off, Ryan catches it, is hit in the tackle – and is knocked out. Literally in the first minute. I’m back-row cover. If Ryan comes off, I’m on. Robin turns to me. ‘Get ready.’

Ryan doesn’t come off immediately. He stays on, hoping that if he’s out there long enough he’ll recover. Am I coming on or not? Ryan doesn’t look too great, but it’s not my call.

Thoughts whirl through my head. What do you want? To come on at 50, like you presumed you would? Or now, before you have time to think about it? Are you ready? Doesn’t matter. You have to be ready when they need you.

With 19 minutes gone, Robin and the medics have seen enough. Ryan’s groggy and not playing anywhere like he usually does. Off he comes. On I go. There’s more than an hour left to play. This is it. I’m a Wales player now, and no one can take that away from me.

Blimey, it’s quick. Doesn’t matter that this is ‘only’ the USA, who are a rung or two down from the highest echelons of world rugby, and doesn’t matter that we run out easy winners, 48–15. It’s noticeably quicker than the Heineken Cup, which is itself noticeably quicker than the Magners League. It’s as though someone’s running it at normal speed plus a half. The passes, the runners, the tackles, all coming fast and relentless, and I have to concentrate more fiercely than ever before just to keep up.

That concentration and the physical effort take their toll – even though I didn’t play the first 20 minutes, I find myself cramping up with 10 minutes to go, which I find out later happens to lots of new caps as they get used to the pace of the game – but I play pretty well.

Back at the hotel, I find myself in the lift with team manager Alan Phillips.

‘You had a good game out there,’ he says.

‘Thank you.’

‘You know what I think? I think we’ve found the next Martyn Williams.’

Friday, 16 October. There’s a bug going round the Blues camp before we play a Heineken Cup match away to Sale Sharks. I’ve got it too, a bad chest infection, but even though I’m an international player now I still feel too young to assert myself properly. So I play. I feel terrible, and I play even worse than that. I give away two tries all on my own.

It’s the worst professional game I’ll ever play, but it teaches me another lesson: illness is as bad as an injury, so treat it like one. If you’ve got the flu or the shits, pull yourself out. The fans won’t know that you’re crook, and they won’t care either. You’re not doing yourself, your team or your reputation any favours. This isn’t playing for the local second XV, making up the numbers or filling in for a mate. This is your livelihood now. If you’re not there, you can’t play badly.

Friday, 13 November. My second cap against Samoa, but in many ways it feels like my first proper match: my first start, my first playing at 7, my first at home. Samoa have history in Cardiff – they won World Cup matches here in both 1991 (when they were called ‘Western Samoa’, leading to lots of resigned jokes about how it was lucky we hadn’t played the whole of Samoa) and 1999.

Just over one minute gone. We break through the middle and Dwayne feeds me on the inside. There’s no defender in front of me and for a split second I sense glory, but in the next stride David Lemi tackles me and then knocks the ball from my grasp just as I’m about to pop it up to Huw Bennett. Another reminder of how narrow the margins are at this level. In a club match, I could well have been in under the posts.

It’s a scrappy game – we’re playing in our change yellow kit, which doesn’t feel at all Welsh – and though we win 17–13, we should close it out much earlier than we do. I play pretty well, though a knock-on reminds me that Ben was right when he said my handling needs to improve, and like most of our forwards I seem to spend half the match clinging onto Henry Tuilagi, who’s basically a wrecking ball in a blue shirt and the hardest guy to tackle I’ve ever come across.

The next day, I’m going up an escalator in the St David’s 2 shopping centre when I hear someone saying, ‘That’s Sam Warburton.’ Rach and I try not to laugh, not because it’s not flattering but because it feels a bit weird. No one’s ever said ‘That’s Sam Warburton’ before. It’s the first tiny taste of something I’ll have to get used to over the years: not of being famous, because I genuinely don’t think that’s a word that can ever be applied to me, but of being locally well recognised.

Saturday, 28 November. I come off the bench against Australia. The match is memorable for two reasons.

First, Australia hammer us, scoring three tries in the first 25 minutes, and – though obviously I don’t yet know it – it’s the start of a miserable personal run in a Welsh shirt against Australia. By the time my career comes to an end I’ll have played for Wales against Australia ten times, and lost the lot.

Second, when I come on it’s in place of my mate Dan Lydiate – Lyds – which means I end up playing blindside with Martyn Williams at openside. Or rather, we play as twin opensides. Rather than having a six who’s a carrier and a seven who’s a scavenger, we both do a bit of each, and spell each other if need be. After a particularly draining period of play, Martyn asks me if I’ll jump on the openside for the next scrum just so he can catch his breath, and I’m happy to do so.

‘This is the way forward,’ Gethin Jenkins says afterwards. ‘Playing two opensides. Makes you as a team so quick to the breakdown.’

He’s right, of course. When it comes to rugby, Gethin usually is. He reads the game so well, and he isn’t afraid to speak his mind either; he’s the only player I’ve ever seen grab the waterboy’s mike and yell up to the coaches, ‘Get X off now, he’s playing shit!’ (X was playing shit, and the coaches did indeed pull him off.)

In years to come this is how I’ll play with Justin Tipuric for Wales and Sean O’Brien for the Lions; I might have 6 on my back, but I’ll still be playing as a 7. And those combinations will respectively yield two of the most memorable victories of my international career.

Sunday, 17 January 2010. The Six Nations is almost upon us, and I know this is it. Summer tours and autumn internationals can be experimental – a chance to try out new players and combinations, perhaps give the more senior and experienced players a rest – but the Six Nations is the real thing. Every country picks their best team. If I’m selected here, I’ll really start to feel that I belong in a Welsh shirt.

Even as a fan, I always loved the Six Nations, and on the morning of every match I’d read all the papers I could find: the predictions, the stories, the latest bulletins from inside the Wales camp. The tournament has such a long and varied history, and every year the players get a chance to add to that history by making some of their own. Five weekends to look forward to in the cold and damp winter days, and the simple primary colours of the competing teams: Welsh red, English white, Irish green, French blue, Scottish navy and Italian azure.

I’m driving back from Loughborough, where I’ve been seeing Rach. She’s studying there, and it’s 150 miles each way, but we try to see each other as much as possible. I know the squad’s due to be announced today, and each player selected will receive a text message by midday to let them know.

I’ve got my ringer turned up to max as midday approaches.

Silence.

The midday news on the radio comes and goes. Still nothing.

Maybe I didn’t play well enough in the autumn internationals. Maybe I haven’t been playing sufficiently well for the Blues lately. I think I’ve done enough on both those fronts, but then again I’m not the one making the selection calls. Am I another nearly man? Rugby’s full of them. The kind who play a few games at international level but can’t really cut it.

At 12.15 I pull into a petrol station. I’m filling the car up when I hear the text tone.

Congratulations, you’re in the Six Nations squad. An email will follow.

The relief. The sheer relief. ‘Yeah!’ I shout as loud as I can. The other customers are looking at me a bit strangely.

The attendant’s voice comes over the tannoy. ‘Pump 6. No mobile phones on the forecourt.’

Saturday, 13 February. Wales 14 Scotland 24, with 12 minutes left. I come on for Martyn. All the second half we’ve been attacking, and even though we’re still ten points down, we – and the crowd – believe we can come back. The game’s frantic, and I have to hit the ground running, adjust myself to its pace instantly.

I make some yards down the left-hand side. A minute or so later, I’m caught in possession by a couple of Scottish forwards. I’m fresh against some tired boys, and I’m hitting the rucks well, but I’m not carrying the ball as well as I could do.

There are only three minutes left when Pence – Leigh Halfpenny – scoots in for a try, which Stephen Jones converts. As we go back to halfway, Jonathan Thomas says something, but although he’s right next to me I can’t hear a word over the crowd.

We still trail by three. Now Lee Byrne goes through, kicks ahead – and is taken out by Phil Godman, who’s sin-binned. Penalty. Three points to draw. Stephen knocks it over as though it’s the training ground.

This is fantastic. If this is the Six Nations, I can’t get enough of it.

The clock’s already gone red when Scotland kick off for the last time. With Godman and Scott Lawson in the bin, we’ve got a two-man advantage. Stephen kicks to the corner for Pence to chase. Pence scrabbles, darts, sets up the ruck. We work it left and left again – and there’s Shane Williams, arm aloft as he goes under the posts to win it in the second minute of added time.

The Millennium goes mental.

There’s this guy called Andy McCann, who’s working with the squad. He’s a psychologist, which of course immediately brings to mind patients on couches and drawings of a house that reveals you have unresolved mother-attachment issues or something like that.

Andy gets that kind of stereotyping a lot, and always explains patiently that psychoanalysts, not psychologists, are the couch and Freud guys. He likes to think of himself more as a mental-skills coach, in the same way that we have coaches for attack, defence, scrums, fitness and so on. And it’s about something physical that I first really get chatting to him.

‘I’ve got some confidence issues when it comes to ball-carrying,’ I say.

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ he replies.

I go to see him in his room. He doesn’t tell me which other members of the team he works with, as all his stuff is confidential: more like a doctor–patient relationship than a coach–player one. I know that about half the squad use him, but I don’t know which half unless boys come out and say so. There’s still a stigma attached to seeing him in some quarters, as though it’s embarrassing, an admission of weakness.

I don’t care. Everyone can improve somewhere, and I’m no different. I want to be a better player tomorrow than I was yesterday, and if Andy can help me in that, then happy days. To me, it’s no different from doing extra gym training or sitting in my pyjamas counting McCaw’s tackle rate in Super Rugby. If it’s going to give me an advantage, then I’d be a fool not to give it a go.

In any case, Andy instantly makes me feel so comfortable that there’s no chance of being embarrassed.

‘Breathe in and out,’ he says. ‘In and out properly, using your diaphragm, until you feel relaxed. When you’re breathing in, that’s positive green energy; when you’re breathing out, that’s negative red energy. Positive energy in, negative energy out. Good. Close your eyes. Now, your next game’s against Ireland at Croke Park, yes? Imagine the noise. So much noise. Always is with Irish crowds, the way they get behind their team. You’re on the bench, and all this noise is swirling around you. Embrace it. Don’t let it intimidate you. It’s there for you just as much as it is the Irish players. Use it, the way they use it. Feed off it, the way they feed off it.

‘You’re warming up. Along the sidelines, behind the posts. Getting your head as well as your body right. Any minute now you’re going to get the nod. There it is. Warby, you’re on. The announcer’s voice. ‘Wales, Number 19, Sam Warburton. The crowd cheering your name. On you come. You’re relaying instructions from the coaches. Your voice and body language scream energy and freshness, and those by themselves give the other lads a lift.

‘First play after you’ve come on. You’ve got the ball. Short pass off 9. Now, don’t think of it from your point of view. Think of it from the point of view of the Irish player waiting to tackle you. What’s he seeing? He’s seeing how big you are, how strong, how dynamic. He’s seeing all your explosive power, and how much you love the confrontation, and he knows that when you smash into him it’s going to hurt and it’s going to take him backwards, and bang! There it is, and you’re through him and there are a couple of your boys piling in behind and you’ve got front-foot ball and the Irish are scrambling and your backs love you for setting them up like this.

‘OK. Rewind back to the moment you get the ball. Now imagine it from the ref’s point of view. Imagine where he’s standing, looking at you from side-on. He’s seeing the determination on your face, and all that power in you as you run, and he’s thinking “I’d better have my eyes peeled here, because this boy’s going to be hard to put down” – and bang! You’re through the first tackle – which means he’ll be giving Wales good ball, which means Ireland will try to slow it down at the ruck, which means they’re going to risk getting pinged for infringing at the breakdown.

‘OK. Rewind again to the pass off 9. Now imagine yourself in the crowd, high in the stands. What have you come to watch? The hits. Think of the ancient Romans and the gladiators. It’s alpha males, it’s one-on-one dominance. It’s in our DNA. The crowd see your power and intent, and they’re bracing themselves for something they can feel 25 rows back – and bang! They shudder at the impact, and then they’re looking at each other and grinning, like “How about that!”’

We do this for four separate incidents – a carry, a lineout, a tackle and a jackal. For each incident Andy makes me think of it from the same three viewpoints: the opposition player, the ref and the crowd. By the time we’ve done all 12, I’m feeling so confident that I could run out at Croke Park here and now. I see it all unfolding almost in slow motion, as though my brain and body are so much quicker than everybody else’s.

I open my eyes.

‘How long do you reckon we’ve been in here?’ he asks.

‘Ten minutes?’

‘Thirty-five.’

Andy helps me in other ways too. He teaches me relaxation techniques, tensing and relaxing various parts of my body until they feel heavy. He’ll massage my head and neck until I’m practically asleep. And he works with me to produce a document that we call Warby’s Winning Ways.

It’s ten pages or so, and I keep it as a PDF on my phone. It’s there so that I can continue to reinforce my positive mindset and remind myself that I’m good enough to be playing international rugby, that I deserve to be playing international rugby and that I add value to every team I play for.

On the front is a picture of me walking out of the tunnel at the Millennium before a Wales match. Behind me the tunnel is lit up all red, and on my face is an expression of total focus: confident in my ability, completely ready for the battle ahead.

Inside are some of my statistics on the pitch and in the gym: I’m strong, I’m fit, no one’s going to better me physically. There are positive newspaper clippings from people in the game I respect praising me. There are photographs of me playing well, and of people who matter to me: my parents, my brother and sister, Rach, Mr Morris and Lennox Lewis, whom I idolised as a kid. My dogs Ted and Gus too, of course; wouldn’t be properly Warby without my dogs.

We’ve even included pictures and logos of the companies that sponsor me, such as Land Rover, adidas and PAS supplements, because these companies wouldn’t be endorsing me if they didn’t believe in me both on and off the pitch.

Later in my career, when I’m more confident as a player, a person and a captain, I won’t need all this. But right now the third of those isn’t yet an issue, and the first two still need a lot of work. So I keep Warby’s Winning Ways close by at all times, and it’s invaluable.

Saturday, 20 March. My first Six Nations start, against Italy at the Millennium. My opposite number is Mauro Bergamasco. He’s smaller than me, but he’s a very good player with that bit of devil in him that all top opensides need. Un cane sciolto, as he once described himself: a marauding dog, an outlaw. He’s played on the wing and at scrum-half for them too. Definitely not your average 7.

‘If you don’t get the first shot in on him,’ Martyn tells me before the match, ‘he’ll niggle you all game.’

I don’t need telling twice.

Five minutes in, I see Mauro contesting a ruck. I come flying in like an Exocet and clear him right out. He, the ref, the crowd – they all see and feel that, just like Andy told me they would.

Mauro doesn’t come back at me all game.

Of all the things I work on and am known for, the breakdown is the single most important aspect. It’s a much bigger part of the game than it used to be; there are something like 170 breakdowns every game, which is almost double the number at the 1995 World Cup, which marked the end of the amateur era, and almost six times the number back in the early 1970s. There are also four and a half times as many breakdowns per game nowadays than scrums and lineouts combined.

That’s helped a new species of defender evolve: the jackal, who pounces on the ball when it’s taken into contact by the opposition and tries to scavenge it. The ultimate aim is of course the turnover, when you rip the ball from the opposition player and secure it for your own side. An interception try apart, the turnover is the single biggest momentum shifter in rugby. Suddenly, the team that were attacking not only have the wind knocked out of them by the frustration of losing the ball, but they also have to instantly reorganise into a defensive structure before the counterattack comes – and, statistically, that moment of transition leads to a disproportionate number of scoring opportunities. A player who can reliably secure four or five turnovers a game is worth his weight in gold.

In every team I play for, I am that player.

The jackal is the one who comes in after the tackler to try and grab the ball from the man on the floor. If you’re exceptionally quick you can be both tackler and jackal, bouncing up off the floor to go from one to the other, as long as you release the opponent after the tackle and before the attempted jackal. But at international level things happen so fast that this isn’t usually an option. Better to hunt in pairs, as I do with Lyds; he goes low to bring the man down and I’m on that man in a flash. Lyds and me: tackle and jackal.

The jackal’s not allowed to support his own bodyweight, which means no knee resting on the opposition player or hands on the ground beyond the ball. This means I have to be both very flexible and very strong; very flexible to get into the low, wide stance I need to secure the ball, and very strong to withstand the hits coming in from the other opposition players arriving at the ruck. Sometimes you get smacked by two or three men at a single ruck. It hurts. Trust me.

So for 15 minutes before and after every training session, I work exclusively on hip mobility: working my glutes, my groin and my hamstrings. I take the heaviest kettlebell I can find, set myself in a sumo squat and go from left to right and back again, shifting my weight all the way over onto one foot and then back through the centre to the other. Deep and strong, I tell myself. Deep and strong.

It’s basic physics. The lower you can go, the harder you are to shift. As Vince Lombardi, the legendary American football coach, used to tell his blockers, ‘The low man wins.’ If you’re low enough over the ball, the opposition players won’t be able to get beneath you to drive you up and out of the way. That’s where the leverage comes in, and without that they’re trying to shift you backwards without first weakening your strong position.

There is one way of getting me out of the jackal position, though only one team have worked it out and even then I’m not sure they know they’ve done it. Whenever you play against France, you can guarantee they’ll be grabbing your balls like it’s going out of fashion. That gets me off the ball better than any clean-out. Just pull my bollocks and I’m off.

Sunday, 23 May. The Blues reach the final of the Amlin Challenge Cup, basically the plate competition for those teams that don’t make it through to the latter stages of the Heineken Cup. The final’s in Marseilles, and we’re up against Toulon, a side for whom this is almost a home game – less than an hour’s drive away – and who are chock full of international superstars: Jonny Wilkinson, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe, Tana Umaga and Sonny Bill Williams. The stadium’s a sea of black and red, Toulon’s colours, with only a few hundred Blues fans in there. We’re massive, massive underdogs.

And we win. Against all the odds, we hold out for a 28–21 final score. It’s the first time any Welsh club has won a European title. I should be bursting with pride, and for the boys I am, but I don’t really feel part of the victory.

It’s not just that I only came on as a sub in the final, and didn’t play in either the quarters against Newcastle or the semis against Wasps. It’s that, much as I love the Blues – and I really do, I’m a one-club man, both as player and fan – I don’t play quite as intensely for them as I do for Wales.

I still play to a high standard, don’t get me wrong. But when I play for Wales, I’m ruined for days afterwards. The way I play is so physical that if I played for the Blues week in, week out the way I play for Wales a handful of times a year, I’d never be off the physio’s table, and I’d be retired by the age of 25. My body just wouldn’t take it.

It’s an emotional thing as much as a physical one. Getting yourself up for the confrontation on the weekend isn’t just a matter of putting on the strapping and going out there. It’s a lot of mental strain, a lot of the old Shakespearian stiffening up the sinews. That takes its toll too.

And I’m the kind of player who needs pressure to really perform. With the best will in the world, even a European club final isn’t remotely on the same level as a Six Nations match, a World Cup knockout tie or a Lions Test. I need those environments in which to perform my best.

And if this leaves the Blues feeling a little short-changed, then I understand that and to an extent agree with it. But like all players, I’m not a robot.

Saturday, 5 June. South Africa at the Millennium. Martyn’s been given the summer off. He’s 34, and even his storied career is going to end sooner rather than later. This is your chance, coach Warren Gatland – Gats – tells me. This is your chance to prove to me that you’re our best 7. He leaves the second half unspoken: not just for this year but next year too, when the World Cup’s taking place in New Zealand. Put down a marker for that tournament.

It’s my first time playing South Africa, and I love it. Perhaps more than any other team, they pride themselves on physical confrontation, which suits me just fine. In the first 15 seconds I tackle Joe van Niekerk, their number 8, but I get my head position slightly wrong and cop the most almighty crack in the gob.

I can taste the blood welling up inside my mouth. I take my gumshield out and feel for my teeth, checking that they’re all there, but the blow’s been so hard that I can’t feel them properly.

‘Mate,’ I say to fellow forward Jonathan Thomas, ‘can you check my teeth?’

He has a look. ‘Yeah, they’re all there. You’ve got a big old gash, though.’

Gashes are ten a penny. Crack on. I throw myself into contact after contact. It’s fast and furious, and when I’m subbed off with a couple of minutes to go we’re trailing by only three points, 34–31 down.

‘Let’s have a look at you,’ the doctor says afterwards.

He presses his finger on the underside of my jaw, and I almost go through the ceiling.

‘Yup,’ he says. ‘You’ve broken your jaw.’

Injury #3.

I need an operation, and they put a metal plate in my jaw. I’m ruled out of the summer tour to New Zealand, which is gutting; I so, so wanted to go down there and prove myself against McCaw, pretty much universally regarded as king of the opensides. And if anyone would appreciate playing 78 minutes with a broken jaw, it’s him.

Saturday, 27 November. I get to play against McCaw six months later, though not without another injury scare. Three weeks earlier, I tear my calf while playing against Australia. Injury #4. It’s somewhere between a grade 1 and a grade 2, which means I should be out for four or five weeks, which in turn means I’ll miss the New Zealand match. If you’re an international player, they’re the team you want to play: the most famous and successful in the history of the game.

‘You can get back in time,’ Andy says.

‘How?’

‘By believing.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. The right mindset can help you so much.’

I ask Prav Mathema, the Wales team physio, if he’s on board with this. I half-expect him to roll his eyes and say it’s a load of bunk, but no, he agrees with Andy, 100 per cent.

‘All right,’ I say. ‘Let’s do this.’

I pepper Prav with questions about the anatomy of the calf. When I have a picture in my mind of what’s beneath my skin, I start to visualise the torn fibres knitting themselves back together again. In my head, I send the positive green breathing energy from my lungs to my arteries, directing blood flow to the affected area and dragging all the damaged red energy back out again where it can’t do any more harm.

Four weeks, they said. I’m recovered in two. The fourth injury of my career, but the first time I really see how much difference a positive mindset can make.

We lose the game 37–25, but I feel I match McCaw in our personal duel, just as I’d matched David Pocock in the match against Australia. These two are as good as it gets, so to hold my own against them when I’ve only just turned 22 is a great confidence boost. Prove to me you’re our best 7, Gats had said. I’ve done that, surely, and a bit more too.

Saturday, 19 March 2011. Our final Six Nations game, against France in the Stade de France. Fifteen minutes in, I have to go off with a knock to the knee.

Injury #5.

I watch from the bench as we lose 28–9.

For the team, it’s been a mixed tournament. We lost our first match to England – our eighth defeat on the trot including the summer and autumn internationals – before winning the next three games: Scotland 24–6, Italy 24–16 (including my first try for Wales, running the inside line off James Hook: a 15-metre break that gets longer and involves beating more players with every retelling, as all forwards’ tries should do), and Ireland 19–13. We end up fourth with six points, the same as Ireland, but behind them on points difference and tries scored.

More than the results, though, there’s a sense that things are changing. Some of the old guard have been phased out, leaving a young team that might not have so much experience, but that has got both talent and the willingness to work together. We’ve done tons of fitness, strength and conditioning work – perhaps to the detriment of the rugby itself at times – because Gats has his eyes not just on this tournament but on the World Cup too. He thinks we can go far, but to do so we’ll need to match our opponents physically as much as anything else.

For me personally, the 2011 Six Nations feels like a triumph. Until the injury against France, I’ve played every minute of every game, and been consistently good. Almost every newspaper’s team of the tournament has me in at 7. To be brutally honest, I feel I should win the official player of the tournament award. This year, however, they’ve changed the way it’s decided, with a shortlist purely from the man of the match winners from the opening four rounds, before the public can vote for the winner. As a result, a couple of Italian players come first and second, even though their team received the wooden spoon.

Don’t worry about it, Andy says. These things are subjective, which means they’re out of your control. Rugby’s not figure skating or gymnastics, where the judges’ role is paramount. It doesn’t matter whether you win player awards or not. What matters is that you play well enough to be in with a shout, and I’ve certainly done that.

Monday, 9 May. The season is over, and I’m at home thinking about an upcoming week’s holiday in Portugal with Rach.

My mobile rings. I look at the screen.

Gats.

I wonder what he wants. It’s not like we speak every day, and there’s no Wales match until we play the Barbarians next month. He’s not the kind of guy who rings just for a chat. I honestly can’t think why he could be ringing.

When I answer, he comes straight to the point.

‘I’m calling to see if you’d like to be captain against the Barbarians.’