My Life in Rugby: Graham Dawe – former Launceston, Bath and England hooker

I was fortunate to meet the great Nelson Mandela not once, but twice, having toured South Africa with England in 1994, just after the fall of apartheid, and again a year later at the World Cup, which was an incredible experience in itself. I was involved in all the games ten years in and around the England team I found myself sitting behind Brian Moore for most of the time but winning eight Cups and six League titles with Bath in some way made up for it.
A major turning point in my career was 1987 as I, along with many others, got caught up in the emotion of the Wales-England match in Cardiff. Tensions had been bubbling under the surface for years and the match began with a mass brawl. The RFU vice-president at the time stepped in and demanded the Union take action, the result of which was a one-game ban for myself, Bath team-mates Richard Hill and Gareth ‘Coochie’ Chilcott and Lancashire’s Wade Dooley. It ended up putting my international career on hold for a while to say the least.
The main reason I’d gone to Bath from Launceston in December 1985 was to win an England cap. I’d been on England’s radar for a couple of years, having done well in a few relatively high-profile games – one being the Centenary match between Cornwall and the Barbarians – without actually being capped. However I made the mistake of telling a reporter that I was joining Bath to further my international ambitions, and Jack Rowell was quick to jump on that. He told me in no uncertain terms, as was his way, that playing for Bath was far more important than winning England caps. I was there to play for Bath. Not England!
It was great to be a part of a Bath squad that had so many wonderful players including Roger Spurrell, a Cornish icon who I really admired as a player, along with likes of Chilcott, Jon Hall, Paul Simpson, David Sole, Richard Lee, Nigel Redman, Jon Morrison and Co. at the beginning with many more as time moved on. At Bath I used to make a 300-mile plus round trip from the Devon-Cornwall border to attend training two or three times a week as well as matches. One time I rescued a lady who got caught between the station platform and the train after slipping whilst attempting to jump on board just as it prepared to set off. I dragged her out to safety and she clung onto me even tighter than Coochie ever did! Being at Bristol Temple Meads station at 11 o’clock at night wasn’t my idea of fun, but the long journey was a sacrifice worth making if it meant being part of a special Bath squad.
Lots of games stand out in the memory – from the midweek win over Bob Norster’s star-studded Cardiff side in 1986 to the epic Cup semi-final against Harlequins in the early Nineties when we almost contrived to throw away a big lead until the brilliant Tony Swift popped up with a winning score. Then there was the 1992/93 title clincher at Saracens, which some of the lads celebrated by bungee jumping – a new phenomenon at the time. I couldn’t think of anything worse than jumping off a 200 foot platform head first!
On a personal level, the first and last Cup final wins were probably the most special. Against Wasps, in 1986, we’d got it wrong defensively after Stuart Barnes insisted on defending one-out and we had to come back from the dead after conceding three tries. Fast-forward ten years and it was Leicester who stood in our way. Bath-Leicester games were always massively forward-orientated, Not only did the Leicester pack think they were going to do a job on us they told us they were. The record books show we won the match, and that’s all that counts.
After leaving Bath I spent two enjoyable seasons playing and coaching at Sale before returning to my home town of Plymouth as their director of rugby. Albion had nearly slipped into the regional leagues the previous season but we managed to turn things around through a lot of hard work which resulted in two promotions back to back in 2001 and 2002, and for the next few years we challenged for promotion against the likes of Exeter, Worcester, Harlequins and Northampton, in what is now the Championship. We helped develop many quality players who went on to grace the Premiership, but due to lack of finances I was unable to hold on to them and build further.
Playing for and coaching the Barbarians was great and I’ve also had the pleasure of doing likewise for Devon and Cornwall, taking both sides to Twickenham in the County Championship final. I’m still involved with Cornwall as well as doing some consultancy work with Saracens, while I wait for my next coaching opportunity.