Blindsided Page 15

  It didn’t matter that he was approaching the end of his brilliant career. He trained and played as if he was on trial, like George Chuter. He had language issues to deal with, something I knew all about from my time in Italy, but he fitted in like anyone else. He was one of the boys—just a really popular guy.

  I remember one week we played up in Rotherham. We gave all the backs’ moves a name, and we decided to call one of them that we used a lot ‘Rotherham’. Well, Philippe couldn’t for the life of him say the word ‘Rotherham’. I think we called it that to wind him up a little. I’d say ‘Rotherham!’ and then Philippe would have to pass the information on to the wingers outside him. His English was fine, but Rotherham isn’t exactly the easiest word to say if you’re French—‘Rrrrrrr . . .’ In fairness to him, I’m sure there are plenty of English-speaking people who can’t say it.

  On the field, Philippe was very special. Sometimes you’d put him in a position where you’d bring a fullback in and have Philippe drifting wide. You’d pass the ball all the way across to Philippe and all he needed was the defender to have a quick look at the fullback inside—and he was gone. We had to adapt our way of playing because he just wasn’t used to structure. Being a bit-part player within an intricate move wasn’t something he was accustomed to. We had those moves, but most of them ended up with Philippe getting the ball at the end of them anyway. He was a very important player.

  Despite the shrewd personnel signings, the first year at Saracens wasn’t a total success. The team didn’t go as well as it probably could have, and for the first time in my career I got some niggling injuries that just wouldn’t clear up. Besides, we were all just dipping our toes into professionalism, testing the waters. A lot of guys were still working and then we were training at night, out at Southgate. I, too, was working in that early period. I’d said to Nigel at one of our meetings, ‘By the way, I’ve always worked when I’ve been playing.’ He said, ‘Really? What do you do?’ I said, ‘Property.’ And he said, ‘I’m chairman of a commercial property investment company here called Burford.’

  So Nigel introduced me to a lovely fellow called Nick Leslau, who ran Burford—he was the CEO. I started working for the company in October 1996, in their Marylebone office. But I soon found that working in the West End and then trying to get out to Southgate to train in the evening was causing both work and rugby to suffer. So I went to Nick and Nigel and said, ‘Look, I can’t do both. The travelling is killing me. We’re professionals and there’s a lot of young guys out there who I’m struggling to keep up with as it is. I’m not as fit as I could be and I’m tired. I’m here to play rugby, so let me concentrate on that and we’ll come back to business later.’

  They completely respected my decision, not to mention my honesty. It was true. I was there to play rugby. I was also thirty-three. It was a wise and sensible move for all of us. In order to do myself justice and keep up with guys who were ten years younger than me, I had to focus one hundred per cent on getting myself in the best shape I could be in.

  Despite being one of the older guys, I liked everyone in the Saracens squad. It was a very good mixture of youth and experience. However, for the first time in my career, I actually felt older. It wasn’t as if suddenly I thought I couldn’t compete. It was subtler than that—more an acknowledgement of the fact that my priorities had changed a little bit. It shouldn’t have come as a great surprise given what I’d been through in the last year and a half.

  There were guys at Saracens who were nineteen, twenty, twenty-one—thrusting, wide-eyed and keen to the possibilities. I was too, but I was thirty-three, with a lot of miles on the clock and a new wife at home. There was a difference. So to go nightclubbing in central London every weekend wasn’t high on my agenda. But I certainly didn’t begrudge any of the guys who wanted to do that. If I’d been in their position, with a bit of money, as they now had, I’d have been in there with them as well. But my social needs had changed. I wanted something else from life. I had a wife, a home; I was keen to nurture that because I knew that it was my future after rugby.

  Amazingly, it was at Saracens that for the first time in my rugby career I was subjected to a curfew. During all the tours I’d been on with Australia or Queensland, nobody had ever told us when to go to bed. It still blows my mind thinking about it.

  We were up in Newcastle and then Scotland for some pre-season training and games, staying in a hotel. As we were standing in the foyer one evening, about to go out, our manager said, ‘Right, everyone, back by midnight.’ I looked at Philippe as if to say, ‘Did I hear that correctly?’ and Philippe said, ‘What? I don’t even finish dinner by midnight.’

  We came back at around eleven-thirty and the Saracens management were sitting in the foyer of the hotel, ticking players off a list as they returned. I felt like a twelve-year-old at St Joseph’s all over again. I also felt that it was the wrong thing to do, for a couple of reasons. First, people resented it and it created a bit of an ‘us and them’ environment—like teachers and pupils, where we, the players, weren’t considered by management to be adult enough to make our own decisions.

  Secondly, if you’ve got some guy who goes out until four in the morning when he’s meant to be training at nine, you soon work out whether he’s the guy you want in your team. If he can’t be responsible for his actions in the pre-season, then maybe he’s not the guy for you. I’d actually rather find out that way. But instead, asking everyone to be back by twelve and then giving someone who gets back at half past twelve extra laps to do . . . I think that defeats the purpose.

  I’ve thought about it since, and while I originally considered the curfew to be a product of the professional game, I now think it was more of a control thing, unique at that time to the UK—‘We’d better keep some kind of control on these blokes or else we’ll lose them—they’ll never come home.’

  By the way, I would agree with that in the case of some of the younger guys—they might indeed have never come back. But at least you’d soon know. I just thought to myself, ‘I’d rather watch and see who doesn’t come home.’ In that situation, you would have probably found that some of the young guys stayed out a bit late. But then the next day they’d do extra; put in more work or whatever was needed to make amends. I’m all for some give and take among adults.

  But if you’ve got someone who’s come in at five, stumbling around and can’t play—‘Aw coach, my hamstring’s a bit tight’—you’re not going to pick him in a big game, are you? Going out and having a good time is absolutely fine, I’ve always thought that. But, like anything, there’s always a time and a place—like after the game on a Saturday.

  I thought the curfew was part of the same culture as the tackling drill. It was a way of making sure that everyone was treated the same—particularly guys like me and Philippe. Fortunately, I also recognised, in both cases, that if I didn’t keep quiet and do as I was told, my season wouldn’t be much fun. But I’m sure there were plenty of foreign players around at that time who wouldn’t have responded like that. They’d have thought, ‘Tackling drill? I don’t have to do that. Curfew? I’m not obeying that.’ That would only have led to resentment and a lack of unity on the pitch.

  I knew that I had to be the opposite of the typical ‘star’, and for me it wasn’t difficult. I felt that I had approached the latter years of my international career as if I was already professional. I’d managed my life in a way that might be expected of a professional in any field. I was organised, courteous, considerate and honest. Part of it was my upbringing; another part was a result of the various decisions I’d made in my life and the rewards I’d got for making them. I had a great marriage, and healthy relationships with my clubs, unions and my fellow players. I never in my life went into a situation thinking, ‘What can I get out of this?’ Instead I always thought, ‘This is great. This has worked. What can we do next year?’

  In fact, I don’t go into relationships of any kind thinking about when they will end. I’m always thin
king about how they can be nurtured, developed and sustained. There’s a big difference and not a lot of people do it.

  TIM HORAN: We always used to admire Noddy for how he created great relationships all over the world. The values he had and the friendships he created off the field were as important as his playing ability. He had a huge role in my development regarding how you handle yourself with the Wallaby jersey on, but also when you finish playing. There’s still an ambassadorial role to play and Noddy was the role model.

  FRANCOIS PIENAAR ARRIVED AT Saracens in December 1996. He was another shrewd acquisition, a guy who came with every intention of doing his absolute best for the team, with no desire to hitch a free ride. Francois was a big character. He was a World Cup-winning captain and the kind of guy who, whenever he gets involved in something, takes it on, takes total control of it and does it to a very high standard. He does that in every aspect of his life.

  Francois played for the 1996–97 season and later became player–coach, taking over from Mark Evans. Francois’ approach was very different from Mark’s, and a lot of people didn’t initially like it. I personally liked him and I got his approach. He was very confident and dominant in his style and very much a winner in terms of his views on discipline and training. He’d just won a World Cup and his team were definitely the fittest group in the competition. Who could argue with that?

  That second pre-season in 1997, I trained as hard as I ever remember training in my life. It was a really tough regime. We were running a lot, carrying bricks around, jumping—we were unbelievably fit. I was very fit too, with no sign of the niggling injuries of the year before. That’s how Francois had won the 1995 World Cup: the South Africans were by far the fittest team there. He brought all those methods with him, and he was a very inspirational speaker as well.

  Some players didn’t particularly like his enthusiastic coaching style, or him, and that meant that I gradually became a buffer between Francois and some members of the squad. Sometimes when Francois was pushing too hard, I’d go to him and say, ‘Look, the guys are tired’, ‘The guys don’t like this or that’, ‘That’s not going to go down well.’ Equally, I might say, ‘He needs his arse kicked’ or ‘Mate, it’s time to put the foot down.’ He was getting a lot of feedback from me that he trusted and the players knew that too. It worked pretty well.

  The upshot of the training regime was that the results were much better in my second season. People can complain about training regimes all day if they like, but if the results are good and the style of rugby is attractive, it’s hard for anyone to argue too much with the methods. Guys who were whining in August about having to do ten consecutive fireman lifts would be saying in January, ‘You know what, this is all right.’ Nobody likes change, but once the players started seeing results from an individual point of view and a team point of view, they accepted it a lot more readily.

  On a personal level, I was developing my ‘I’ll prepare in the best way I can for every game’ mode. There were plenty of cold and wet days when I would have much rather been doing other things, and when the other guys were sitting inside, but I’d get out there, practising my goal-kicking. No discussion, no fanfare; just good, structured preparation. And it paid off. I was kicking better than I ever had and because of it the team’s results were better. It wasn’t all down to me, as it never should be, but by kicking at 80 per cent plus that season I was more than pulling my weight. It felt better too. I’m not saying the pressure was gone, but there’s definitely something to be said for turning up at a game knowing that you’ve done everything you possibly could have in advance. I still kicked on feel, but the difference was that there was a bit more planning to back it up.

  AS GOOD AS THINGS were at Saracens during that 1997 season, I realised around January or February 1998 that it was going to be my last season playing rugby. I was playing well, enjoying myself and holding together physically, but the thought of another pre-season made me decide to retire. I’d reached a point, quite reasonably I think, where I was having to work too hard to keep up with the younger guys, and I didn’t think I had the stomach for going through it all again.

  A month before the season ended, I had conversations with Nigel Wray and Nick Leslau and we agreed that once I’d finished at Saracens I’d go straight back into working in commercial property at Prestbury, a company Nick and Nigel had recently started. I liked that feeling of having something new to go to. It was the next chapter in my life and I was really looking forward to it.

  Even before it happened, it felt right. Just as in 1995, I knew it was the right decision. Fortunately, having gone close to winning the premiership in 1997, but narrowly coming second to Rob Andrew’s Newcastle Falcons, Philippe (who’d also decided to retire) and I would get the opportunity to sign off on the best possible stage: the Tetley Bitter Cup final against Wasps.

  There was a huge build-up to that Cup final at Twickenham. Win, lose or draw, it was going to be the last time I ever played competitive rugby and there was a lot of pressure and press attention because of that. It was a big deal for Saracens too, because it was the first Cup final they’d ever appeared in. Everything pointed to it being a fabulous occasion: my last game, Philippe’s last game and the Cinderella team of English rugby in the final of the Cup. I thought, ‘Okay, mate, this is it.’

  We ended up staying in the same hotel out in Weybridge as the Wallabies had in 1991, before the World Cup final. When we arrived there, I looked around and thought, ‘I think I’ve been here before.’ It was a little different after seven years; there’d been some building development in the area immediately around the hotel. But on the morning of the match, I decided to go for a walk, to see if I could find that same hill where I’d kicked balls back in ’91. I found it, and did exactly the same thing again.

  I remember walking down the tunnel for the final quite vividly. My stomach was in knots as I walked out, but literally the moment that the sunlight hit my face as I walked onto the pitch and saw the huge crowd I smiled and said to myself, ‘Welcome home. You’re in your office. You know what you’re doing—off you go.’ It was really liberating.

  If that’s the way you feel, you know that you should retire. I played really well, physically I was okay and we won the game 48–18. It couldn’t have worked out better.

  Journalists afterwards said, ‘You played great! Are you going to play next year now? ’ I said, ‘No, it’s because I played great that I’m not playing again.’ That’s the way I wanted to be remembered. Also, and every bit as importantly, that was how I wanted to remember myself. That was exactly how I wanted to go out, feeling calm and thinking, ‘This is my stage.’ Not just that, I felt I had achieved what Nigel brought me to Saracens to do. He wanted to put this little North London club on the map—and by beating Wasps in a final at Twickenham we had certainly done that.

  I’ve talked to Nigel often about Saracens since I left. As an outsider, it’s easy to observe what’s really going on. After Philippe and I left, things didn’t quite reach the heights of that 1997–98 season for a long time. I think Nigel believed that the secret of success was simply to go out and buy big-name players with a hundred caps. I’ve said to him on more than one occasion, ‘The biggest problem you had is that it did work in the first year and you thought that was the formula.’ He sees that now, but it took him a while, with a few wrong choices along the way.

  In fact Saracens bought in players for ten years after I left, and it didn’t work every time. The reason? They didn’t always bring in the right personalities.

  Some people came in to the club and did the bare minimum and collected the money. They thought, ‘Let’s see what I can get away with here.’ They wouldn’t give a hundred per cent because they didn’t want to get injured; that would have influenced their salary. That’s the wrong attitude to bring to a club. I’ve often wondered whether that attitude was a product of the professional game. Once players became more used to professional life, maybe some of them thought, ‘Le
t’s just go through the motions and take the money.’

  Nowadays I see Saracens as being much closer to the vision Nigel had at the start. People refer to ‘the cult of Saracens’ and while I think that’s a bit strong, I do see a clear club ethos that you either buy into or you leave. It’s very much focused on working together, doing everything together and being very inclusive of family. The argument is—and I believe in it—that if players are happy in every aspect of their lives, they’ll play better. It’s a close-knit group; they’re all in it together. The theory being that when it gets really tough on the weekend, you’re more inclined to play for the guys beside you. That’s the kind of ethos they’ve developed over the last four or five years. Players are coming there not to see what they can get out of it. They’re there to give something back and to make Saracens a better place than it was when they arrived. That’s a very hard ethos to establish in a professional club.

  When I look at Toulon, it always surprises me that they’ve managed to create a similar ethos in a club that brings in superstars. But when I give it more thought, I can’t help believing that Jonny Wilkinson is a big part of the reason they’ve managed it. In many ways, the way he approached his time at Toulon was very similar to how I operated at Saracens—only Jonny went on and applied a whole new level of dedication.

  At Toulon you’ve got guys who’ve got a hundred caps and are reaching the end of their careers. They’re in the south of France, thinking, ‘This is nice.’ They’re getting paid good money for being there, too, yet there’s Jonny out training and practising for six hours every single day. Watching him, they must think, ‘Oh, this really means something to him’, and so they’ve started doing the same thing.