My Life in Rugby: Sam Vesty – former Leicester, Bath & England utility back

One game that really sticks out was the 2009 Heineken Cup semi-final at Cardiff Blues where we were involved in the competition’s first-ever penalty shoot-out.
The score was 26-all after extra time after Cardiff fought back from 26-12 down. It was high nerves stuff for us, I was one of the five named kickers.
I remember standing at the back of my run-up, knowing I was going to kick it over –100 per cent. But I still broke down in tears, such was the emotion of it all.
Jordan Crane kicked the sudden-death penalty and we won, but then lost to Leinster in the final.
Winning trophies was always great fun but you also remember losing the trophy matches as well.
When I was younger, I got to two county tennis finals at U14 and U16 level and also played cricket for Leicestershire Second XI.
I loved my cricket and still do, trying to play whenever I can, but Dean Richards told me I needed to make a choice. Playing rugby was a great opportunity so I decided to take it, going through the Leicester Academy, along with Harry Ellis, Ollie Smith and Brett Deacon.
Ollie was in a band we started in 2005 with a few others at Tigers. I was always playing a bit of guitar and one of the masseurs at Leicester was into music and suggested we give things a go.
There was Ollie on drums, Dan Hipkiss on vocals, and we discovered George Chuter could play the saxophone so he got in with Ayoola Erinle on the drums. We were called Slo Progress and we did a few charity gigs over four years for the Matt Hampson Foundation.
My competitive debut for Tigers was the last two minutes away to Leeds in 2002. My dad, granddad and great granddad all played for the club, so I was carrying the tradition on a bit. But we lost, so it was not the most successful of debuts.
I got my first start the next week at fly-half against Newcastle and I was up against Jonny Wilkinson. We won by 40 odd points.
I wasn’t first choice for any position but played around 170 games. That was probably one of the reasons we were successful, everyone was fighting for positions.
Playing No.10 is great but I loved 15. It was completely different. I also played at 12 towards the end of my career. As long as I was playing, I didn’t really mind where.
In 2009 I got my two caps for England. I played 27 minutes in total. It’s a shame it wasn’t more but it’s something no one can take away from me.
I made my debut at Old Trafford and then we played away in Argentina. I loved every second of it.
My move to Bath came in 2010 and I had three really good years there. It would have been great if we could have won a few more games, but it’s a great place to live and I made some really good friends there.
I was considering whether to keep playing, but an opportunity came along with Worcester Warriors this season that I thought would be a great chance to start my coaching career.