Peter Jackson: Ten years on, Coombs is overnight sensation!

When it comes to recurring rejection in pursuit of a professional career, Andrew Coombs deserves to be out on his own at the top of the table. Of all the captains of all the teams in action over the weekend, none has surely travelled a rockier road than the unassuming Welshman who headed the Newport Dragons storming start to the new Pro12 season against Ulster at Rodney Parade on Friday night.
He goes about every waking minute of his life as a professional rugby player with all the gratitude of one who spent long years clinging to the hope that one day someone, somewhere, would grant him the privilege of earning a living from his hobby.
“I’ve had to work very hard for what I’ve got,” he says. “Nothing has come easy. When you’ve had to wait a long time for a full-time contract, you appreciate it all the more when it comes.”
At 28, it has taken him the best part of ten years to find himself lauded as an overnight sensation upon arrival in the engine room of the Wales pack. How he got there ought to serve as an inspiration to young players the world over when prospective employers tell them they aren’t good enough.
Coombs’ journey began in his home village of Nelson, a place famous for the birth there of two distinguished soldiers – former WRU president, the late Sir Tasker Watkins who won a Victoria Cross on the beaches of Normandy and the Falklands’ War hero, Simon Weston.
When the young Coombs took a peep at the world beyond Nelson, he found himself stymied at just about every turn. After enrolling in the Ebbw Vale academy, he was going along nicely until the finishing school ‘went through’ and disbanded.
Ebbw Vale having let him go, Newport’s Welsh Premiership club did likewise after Coombs had spent a while at their academy. “Newport suggested I go and play for Newport Saracens, who were in the second division,” he said. “Nelson were in the third division and I told them I’d rather go back to my local club.
“Luckily, Pontypool contacted me out of the blue so I played semi-pro for them under the great Steve ‘Junnah’ Jones. After a season the Dragons’ academy offered me a two-year deal.”
What appeared to be an overdue break turned into the familiar old tale of rejection. “Unfortunately I had two shoulder reconstructions during those two years so at the end of it I got released, again.
“It was a very difficult period of my life. My mother had passed away about two months before, at the age of 42, and I was grieving over her death when I got called into the Dragons’ office to be told there was no contract. That was the lowest point.
“You get to a stage when you begin to think things are never going to get better. Luckily my girlfriend, Helen, who’s now my wife, gave me the support to carry on playing.
“I had a job selling computer software and I signed on part-time for Newport RFC back in the Welsh Premier League. The Dragons kept in touch and at one point they said that if I kept injury-free they’d probably have another look at me.
“In the first season I won Player of the Year. They made me captain the next season and I was halfway through it when the Dragons called me up to play against Connacht because they’d had a few out with injury.
“I’d been waiting so long for a chance like that. I had a really good game and on the way home, Paul Turner (then Dragons’ head coach) said I’d proved him wrong and that he wanted to offer me a full-time contract. I’m just so glad I stuck at it.”
Three full seasons later, Coombs is rubbing shoulders with other Pro12 captains who have long been seasoned international locks, like Italy’s Marco Bortolami, the Ulster Springbok Johann Muller, Alastair Kellock, of the Glasgow Warriors, and Alun-Wyn Jones, of the Ospreys.
When Wales found their second row cupboard horribly bare at the start of last season’s Six Nations, Coombs sprang from nowhere to partner Ian Evans against Ireland. He answered all the “Andrew who?” queries by taking to the Test arena as if to the manner born.
Another big game during the win over France in Paris did more than banish the danger of the policeman’s son disappearing as a one-cap wonder. Acting coach Rob Howley paid Coombs the ultimate compliment of keeping him in the team despite Jones’ return to full fitness.
Coombs finished up as a late substitute during the unforgettable climax against England, more than justifying his Six Nations medal in the process. The next day, as the country nursed a hangover on a national scale, Coombs added his own poignant post-script to the tournament.
“I was driving home alone with the Six Nations’ medal beside me in the empty passenger seat,” he said. “I had to go past the cemetery on the way home and I thought it would be nice to put the medal on the headstone of my mother’s grave.
“Now that I am a parent, I realise how much time my parents gave up to help me with my rugby. I just wish my mother had lived to see me play for Wales. I’d like to think she had the best seat in the house the night we beat England, even if the roof was closed…!”
Coombs, a real credit to the game in his understated way, intends to push the Osprey Lions, Jones and Evans, all the way between now and the start of the November series. After last season, nobody will bet against him.