Peter Jackson: Richard Hibbard, from dog-house to life with the big cats

Richard Hibbard came home from Australia this time last year fearing the worst, that he would never play for Wales again. The management blamed their substitute hooker for conceding the late penalties in Melbourne which enabled the Wallabies to win a close-run series.  They promptly removed him from the bench for the closing match in Sydney the following week.
Back in his native Ospreylia, Hibbard made a stark confession to his regional coach Jon Humphreys, now in charge of Scotland’s pack. “Richard was extremely down, to the point where he thought that was the end for him with Wales,” Humphreys said. “He thought his last chance had gone.”
Which only goes to show what a difference a year can make. Twelve months on, Hibbard is back in Australia with the Lions, not simply to make up the numbers but in pole position for the hooker’s jersey when the Test series begins in Brisbane on Saturday.
If he makes it ahead of Tom Youngs and Rory Best, the Welshman’s selection will underline Humphreys’ knack of putting together the pieces of a player who sounded last year as though he belonged to the Humpty Dumpty League of broken dreams.
“I’ll be the happiest guy in the world if he makes the starting team for the first Test,” Humphreys told me from Nelspruit during a break in Scotland’s preparations for their match against South Africa. “He deserves nothing less for all the blood, sweat and tears.
“You like the kid and you want him to do well. He’s been as big a part of my development as a coach as I’ve been of his development as a player. That’s what we do – try to get the best out of players.”
Humphreys’ concern  was such that he interrupted a family holiday in Florida this time last year to offer a distraught Hibbard some consoling advice.
The unhappiest of hookers had summed up a miserable tour as  “not involved in the first Test, came in for the second, lost it and got dropped for the third.”
Small wonder that Hibbard felt all that left him in “a dark place”. Humphreys, a Wales hooker in his own right, said: “I rang him to see how he was. It was tough for him because ‘Hibs’ didn’t have a good defence system against criticism.
“He tends to take things very personally. It took a lot to bring the kid round. They (the Wales management) blamed him for giving away two penalties in a row which took the Wallabies into a position to win the match.
“I tried to explain to Hibs that in every match there are probably 20 things which affect the outcome and that people tend to focus on the last five minutes. I tried to explain to him that he just happened to be at the end of a process which shouldn’t have got going in the first place.
“He’s always been a huge player for us and we didn’t waste any time making that point and making him feel important. I’ve always been of the opinion that Richard Hibbard is custom-built for Test rugby.
“He has been the most effective hooker out there for some time. He’s aggressive, strong physically and excellent at the set-piece.
“You ask Adam Jones who’s the guy he wants to play alongside in the front row, and he’ll tell you every time, ‘Richard Hibbard’. He’s also a very effective ball-carrier as you’d expect from someone who’s 112kg.”
There was a time, not so long ago, when Hibbard weighed a bit more, when he hit the scales rather too hard for the Ospreys‘ liking. Scott Johnson, then directing operations at Swansea before Scotland asked him to do the same job for them, warned that Hibbard was in danger of being too fat for his own good.
“That was a lifestyle issue,” Humphreys said. “Once Richard realised that, as a professional sportsman, he had to take that part of his game seriously, it was always going to have the desired effect.
“I knew that once he got a run of games with Wales, he wouldn’t look back. I’d have picked him for Wales before they did. He started last season amazingly well and we were delighted he got on the Lions tour because he wasn’t selected for Wales against Ireland at the start of the Six Nations.”
Missing a blot big enough to cost Wales another Grand Slam turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Hibbard. The hooker who began in Port Talbot at junior clubs like Aberavon Quins and Taibach had made just five starts for Wales in the seven years since winning his cap before they picked him after the Irish defeat.
Until then there was every prospect of Hibbard being lost among a raft of other Test hookers – Huw Bennett, Matthew Rees, Mefin Davies, TR Thomas, Gareth Williams, Lloyd Burns and Ken Owens.
Now, at 29, Hibbard is not only the main man for Wales but within striking distance of being anointed the best of British and Irish.