My Life in Rugby: Paul John: Wales Sevens coach
Teaching, it was something I did alongside my rugby all the way to 2003.
When the game was still amateur, you had to work at the same time. I loved it.
It gave me a routine and a focus apart from rugby. I would train and then go to school. Growing up rugby had always been a bit of a hobby for me and then teaching was my job.
I was told I’d have to play full-time in 2003 – it was one or the other. I chose rugby but, looking back, I regret it.
Gareth Cooper and Sililo Martens, who were in the Celtic Warriors squad at the time, had been away at the World Cup so I was getting games. When they came back I was third choice scrum-half.
Half way through that season I wished I’d carried on the teaching, it was just more enjoyable.
I went back to Pontypridd as a player-coach before going into just coaching. I enjoyed coaching much more than playing so I didn’t find it hard to step away.
We won two SWALEC cups with Pontypridd and I was also teaching at Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive School before I was offered the job of coaching the Wales Sevens side.
Again it was a case of not being able to juggle all my commitments. With Sevens you can be away for up to 14 weeks of the year.
My headmistress was kind enough to give me a three-month sabbatical to concentrate on the team and we won the World Cup. After that I realised I couldn’t carry on doing both, so I took a gamble and left my job to do the Sevens full-time.
I really enjoy teaching PE but this was a different challenge. It’s a great environment, there are some good players coming through. It’s a really good test as far as coaching is concerned and I was lucky enough to inherit a squad, full of some very good youngsters.
Six weeks before the World Cup we had beaten New Zealand for the first time in Wellington. We went from strength to strength, beating them again in the quarter-final before winning the thing. It was all about momentum and we deserved it.
That was one of my career highlights as was my debut for my country on an overseas tour to Canada, Fiji and Tonga in 1994 when I was 24.
I played against Canada A, my first time in a Wales senior shirt. Then I was a sub against Canada before playing against Tonga. It was not an easy game, but we managed to win. There must be something about Canada because that was where I got to captain Wales when a lot of the boys were away with the Lions in ‘97.
I’d made 30-odd appearances for Wales A and captained them so I had experience of it and knew how it worked, but it was still a great highlight.
I played ten times for Wales, having played through the ages from East Wales U11, U15, U18 and U21, and then played for Cardiff, Pontypridd and Celtic Warriors.
Rugby’s a way of life in Wales – it was all I knew from a very early age.
