I played my last game in 38-degree heat…
MY LIFEIN RUGBY
THE FORMER NORTH OTAGO, BIRKENHEAD PARK, NEW BRIGHTON, WATERLOO, DONCASTER AND CHESHIRE/ LANCASHIRE BACK ROWER
OMAN, where I have been living with my family for the last two years, is a beautiful country – just like Wales with the coastline and the mountains – but with a lot fewer rugby clubs and a better climate. In fact, there is only one rugby club out here, in Muscat, where my son now plays.
After starting out at a local club Pontarddulais, I moved to Bonymaen RFC, which had one of the best youth set-ups around. Some very good players came through there, not least the world's most-capped player, Alun Wyn Jones. It's where the rain comes down sideways and you can get four seasons in one afternoon. Opposition sides dreaded playing there but we loved it.
Once I went on to Liverpool John Moores University to study P.E and Geography I only intended to play for the university. But we trained at Birkenhead Park, one of the oldest clubs around, and it wasn't long before I joined them. I loved the history of the place, and with them only being in North 1 at the time, the lack of long distance travel, and the beer money I received, meant it complemented my student lifestyle very well.
Once I finished Uni, I got a job as a development officer at New Brighton and played for them for a season in Division 3. A Kiwi fella called Mike Howe was the coach and also an agent so he arranged for me and Ketts (Adam Kettle) to go to North Otago when they were looking for young loose forwards. It was 2005 so it was great timing with the Lions out there on tour.
The club were sponsored by a local electrical company and they gave us a job. Basically, we would just pass tools to the electricians as that's all we were trusted to do. I think they just liked the idea of having some North Otago players on the books, plus we were easy targets for piss-taking because we didn't have a clue what we were doing; Ketts couldn't even put a light bulb in without smashing it in his hand or on the floor. Thankfully, the Union got us a coaching job and we had a great time travelling up and down New Zealand, watching the Lions whenever we could, as the job came with a car.
Off the back of a good season in the National Provincial Championship 2 (now the Heartland Championship) when we reached the semi-finals, Ketts and I were offered trials by Bedford. There were strong links between the two clubs because a North Otago man, Colin Jackson, had coached over in Bedford. Unfortunately, I turned up with a groin problem that took a year to resolve so, while Ketts had a good spell there, I never actually got to play for them. Once I'd gone through a lengthy rehab, I ended up answering an SOS to go back to the north west to join a struggling Waterloo, in what is now the Championship.
“You were never short of laughs at Donny, every day it was always a fun place to be”
Waterloo had won promotion the season before and were finding life very tough. A week after he signed me in the November, the coach, an Aussie called Mick Melrose, was sacked. He didn't say much and didn't really seem to have much of an idea about tactics so the boys didn't really take to him. Even though the team were losing most weeks, I managed to put in some good performances and it was during that time I played for Cheshire & Lancashire. Doncaster and Sedgley Park came in for me when my short-term deal at Waterloo ended and I chose Donny because they were able to offer me my first full-time contract and it felt like a club that was going places as they'd just built their new stand.
You were never short of laughs at Donny, every day it was always a fun place to be. Us Welsh lads, and there were quite a few of us there, possibly because there was a succession of Welsh coaches – Kingsley Jones, Lynn Howells, Clive Griffiths, Brett Davey – felt right at home in Donny because of the familiarity of being in an old working-class mining community and we could all lean on each other.
Out of everyone though, I would say that it was the Tonga prop, Ngalu Tau, a former police officer, who ruled the roost. When the young players came into the first-team squad he always tested them; he would have them crawling across the changing rooms, getting his boots, doing his protein shakes for him, and he would get in their face and say, ‘are you tough, are you tough'? Basically anything to see what they were made of. He'd come out with random stuff, too. At one meeting I remember Lynn Howells talking tactics and asking Ngalu what he thought. Ngalu was staring out of the window at the time and said, ‘there is a big white bird on the pitch'. You can imagine the laughter. He'd clearly not been listening to a word Lynn had said.
It was great to be a part of that pack at Donny. Listy (Richard List) always put his hand up; Chall (Matt Challinor) never let you down; Ketts would win you a game and then be sent off the next, you were never quite sure what he would do; (Simon) Grainger was everywhere; Bryn Griffiths always put a shift in; Tom Davies, who went on to join Cardiff was so strong. Woody (Mark Woodrow) had an armchair ride and ran the game in the backs and Spencer Davey would hit it up the middle. It wasn't a game plan that would ever set the world alight but that's the way the Championship was in those days – tough and uncompromising and no frills. I loved it.
I went part-time in my final three years at Donny, which worked out well because I'd started training to become a teacher. The reason I did that was because of a really bad knee injury I sustained playing in a mid-winter match against Moseley. The pitch at Castle Park had been covered but it was still hard in places and firmed up as the match went on. I managed to make a line break (one of the rare ones so I remember it well!) and my knee bent backwards and ended up basically facing in the wrong direction after their full-back tackled me around one leg as I tried to side-step him.
I was never the same player after that and as I was getting on a bit, I decided to stop playing, although I did help Griff out in National One for a few games when they were short of a lock. I went into coaching Doncaster Phoenix, but I didn't really enjoy it. Financially, things were a struggle, too, as my teacher's salary was used up on nursery fees so that's when my wife and I decided to head abroad.
After a couple of interviews, I landed a job at the British School in Beijing and we stayed there for five years. The great thing about rugby is that you always seem to bump into people you might have played against or met, even in the most unlikely of places. Within a day of arriving in China I clocked former Gloucester player Pete Buxton in the embassy as we waited to get our visas sorted out. His swede is massive, it's a head you never forget, and his ears have a heartbeat all of their own! Pete and I played some really enjoyable rugby for Beijing Devils RFC before the next chapter of our family adventure took us to Oman, which is where I played my last-ever game of 15s – in 38-degree heat against a British Army team that was basically a load of Fijians. They ran rings around us and I vowed that was it, never again!
