My Life in Rugby: Rob Sidoli – Former Pontypridd, Cardiff Blues, Wales and current Dragons lock

I was with Pontypridd when I won my first Wales cap in 2002, and it was all the more special because four of my teammates also made their debuts that year: Gethin Jenkins, Richard Parks, Michael Owen and Mefin Davies.
We were all young guns starting the journey together and we went on to win the Grand Slam in 2005 after a tough period when we had picked up the wooden spoon two years prior.
The build-up to the 2007 World Cup and the Six Nations before was a disappointing one for me – I’d just come back from injury and played against Scotland, which didn’t go well.
Other players in my position played ahead of me and rightly so, we had an amazing Australia tour – nearly winning out there – but we had a warm-up game against England away, and that didn’t go particularly well either.
I was very disappointed not to make the final selection for the World Cup, but it just didn’t happen.
Before I even got capped for Wales, though, Italy were keen for me and my younger brother, Peter, to play for them so to score against them in that Grand Slam year had extra meaning; it was a really thrilling moment.
My brother Peter was probably more fixated on rugby than I was initially.
I remember when we first got Sky he’d be up on the Saturday morning watching what was then the Super Ten.
We were both the same stature and the words from the coaches were ‘he can train and all’, and so he got into rugby as well and ended up at the Dragons too.
My mother is a Cardiff girl and my Dad is from Italy – he moved over to Wales when he was 18, and naturally he was into football.
Any bit of grass in Italy they have football fields put down but through our involvement and being in Wales he’s come round to what rugby’s about.
When I went to Pontypridd in 1999 I had two years left at university.  I was able to do my weights early in the morning, then did my university in the day, and the rugby would start at four o’clock. It was hard but at the same time I loved it.
I had four or five years at Ponty then things were formed into the Celtic Warriors. I think it could have been a real powerful merger, it was one of the best squads around then but it was very disappointing it didn’t work out.
But the Blues then the Dragons have given me so much since then.  I’m now helping coach the Dragons’ regional U18s and with the academy, the biggest influence in the last two or three years at the club is the breed of player coming through.
I enjoy being on the pitch but with the likes of Jack Dixon, Hallam Amos, Ashley Smith – the academy is going to be a real potent weapon.