my life, and the rest of the guys feel the same. You can tell from the way we are all getting pumped up. Then, in the changing room before we go on, our full-back screams out that this, for us,should be the second Battle of Agincourt, and the mood is killed. Some guys are no doubt trying to work out what Agincourt actually was, while others are thinking that the comparison is a touch over the top. But we are still pumped. In the team huddle in the big space between the changing room and the showers, we are bouncing around, so fired up that we keep bumping into the shower buttons, turning on the water, getting sprayed, shuffling along to a dry spot and then knocking into the shower buttons again.
So we take the field slightly damp, I sing my first ever national anthem on the Twickenham turf and a new team takes its first steps towards success.
We beat France and I kick all four of my goals, including an important conversion from the touchline. The following week, at Lansdowne Road, we survive a streaker-on-the-pitch experience, and well beat the Irish, even though their team has a strong back line including Brian O’Driscoll, a player of whom we have all heard.
Scotland are next. We play them up at Preston Grasshoppers. I get a try and kick seven goals. With that 55–18 win behind us, we head to Wales in search of a Grand Slam.
The atmosphere around Narberth, where we play, is noticeably hostile, gritty. The teams on the pitch are pretty hostile, too. Previous results suggest that we should win, but with us going for the Grand Slam and them intent on stopping us, the game is very tense.
In the absence of our captain, Tony Roques, I am captain for the day. I am also given an early taste of the kind of aggression with which this entire game is played. In fact, I will look back on this game as involving probably the worst shoeing I’ve taken in my entire career.
Only five minutes into the match, on the far side of the field, I’m on the wrong side of the ruck. I try to get out of the way but can’t because I’m being rucked to pieces. It feels as though the opposition are just running upand down my back. Later, we take photographic evidence of the scars, but for now, I get to my feet and feel an intense burning sensation. The heavy cotton of our shirts seems to stick to the wound and exaggerate the pain. And I’m thinking great, that has just got me super fired up.
The game is close and edgy. In Gareth Cooper they have an electric scrum half, and we struggle to keep any kind of lead. We get to the dying seconds of the game 17–15 down.
What we need is a drop goal, but drop goals have not really formed a huge part of my decision-making on the field up to this point. I like to attack. I have only ever kicked two drop goals in my life, one six years ago in Senlis. The other was a few weeks ago, right at the end of my last game for Lord Wandsworth, in the Hampshire Cup final, when our hooker Dave Barker ran over to me and said if I win this scrum against the head, you’ll have to take a drop goal. That was his deal – bizarre – but I stuck to it.
Here it’s clear what we need. We know what we are up to. We drive the ball up the middle a few times and it comes back to me too far out to be a decent bet, about 40 metres. I hit it with my left, the contact is good but it might not have the distance. Only when the referee hears the Welsh full-back swearing is he convinced that the ball did indeed creep over.
We have a Grand Slam. And a last-minute drop goal feels good.
The Grand Slammers soon depart on a major trip – a five-week tour of Australia. This is the biggest thing, rugby-wise, that has happened to me, and it is also a major experience in terms of leaving home. We are staying in billets and a part of me is still thinking oh God, I don’t want to be billeting on my own. So at the first opportunity, I sneak a word with the coaches.Look, I say, with all the kicking practice I need to do, it’d make sense
So we take the field slightly damp, I sing my first ever national anthem on the Twickenham turf and a new team takes its first steps towards success.
We beat France and I kick all four of my goals, including an important conversion from the touchline. The following week, at Lansdowne Road, we survive a streaker-on-the-pitch experience, and well beat the Irish, even though their team has a strong back line including Brian O’Driscoll, a player of whom we have all heard.
Scotland are next. We play them up at Preston Grasshoppers. I get a try and kick seven goals. With that 55–18 win behind us, we head to Wales in search of a Grand Slam.
The atmosphere around Narberth, where we play, is noticeably hostile, gritty. The teams on the pitch are pretty hostile, too. Previous results suggest that we should win, but with us going for the Grand Slam and them intent on stopping us, the game is very tense.
In the absence of our captain, Tony Roques, I am captain for the day. I am also given an early taste of the kind of aggression with which this entire game is played. In fact, I will look back on this game as involving probably the worst shoeing I’ve taken in my entire career.
Only five minutes into the match, on the far side of the field, I’m on the wrong side of the ruck. I try to get out of the way but can’t because I’m being rucked to pieces. It feels as though the opposition are just running upand down my back. Later, we take photographic evidence of the scars, but for now, I get to my feet and feel an intense burning sensation. The heavy cotton of our shirts seems to stick to the wound and exaggerate the pain. And I’m thinking great, that has just got me super fired up.
The game is close and edgy. In Gareth Cooper they have an electric scrum half, and we struggle to keep any kind of lead. We get to the dying seconds of the game 17–15 down.
What we need is a drop goal, but drop goals have not really formed a huge part of my decision-making on the field up to this point. I like to attack. I have only ever kicked two drop goals in my life, one six years ago in Senlis. The other was a few weeks ago, right at the end of my last game for Lord Wandsworth, in the Hampshire Cup final, when our hooker Dave Barker ran over to me and said if I win this scrum against the head, you’ll have to take a drop goal. That was his deal – bizarre – but I stuck to it.
Here it’s clear what we need. We know what we are up to. We drive the ball up the middle a few times and it comes back to me too far out to be a decent bet, about 40 metres. I hit it with my left, the contact is good but it might not have the distance. Only when the referee hears the Welsh full-back swearing is he convinced that the ball did indeed creep over.
We have a Grand Slam. And a last-minute drop goal feels good.
The Grand Slammers soon depart on a major trip – a five-week tour of Australia. This is the biggest thing, rugby-wise, that has happened to me, and it is also a major experience in terms of leaving home. We are staying in billets and a part of me is still thinking oh God, I don’t want to be billeting on my own. So at the first opportunity, I sneak a word with the coaches.Look, I say, with all the kicking practice I need to do, it’d make sense
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