My Life in Rugby: Robin Cowling – former England prop

With my family background I suppose I was destined to play rugby. My dad came from County Durham and played Rugby League while my mother was a fanatical Gloucester girl. Both her dad, Horace A’Bear and brother John A’Bear captained the Cherry & Whites and John toured with the Lions.
I won the first of four RFU Knockout Cups while with Gloucester in 1971. It was the inaugural year of the competition, and there was a real excitement in the city. Moseley had England lock Nigel Horton sent off after only three minutes and they ended the game with only 12 men after two of their players went off injured. It’s fair to say we dished out some punishment that day and lived up to our reputation as being the ‘Leeds United of Rugby’. We went out to do a job and we did it. Needless to say the Press didn’t like us for it. No-one in Gloucester cared about that, though, and our local MP Sally Oppenheim took us on a tour of the Houses of Parliament to celebrate. I also played in four County Championship finals (1971-74) while with the club.
In 1974 I moved to Market Harborough to take up a job as a farm/estate manager and joined Leicester. I got all my caps while I was there playing under Chalkie White, who was a real innovator, dabbling in sports science. I remember he weighed us before and after games and found out we were dehydrating during matches. I can still taste the horrible green liquid he made us drink!
Leicester were forward-thinking and ambitious as a club, and, like Gloucester, had set their sights on winning what was now known as the John Player Cup. I missed the first final, a 6-3 defeat by Gloucester in 1978, because I’d been injured playing for England against France, but appeared in the wins against Moseley, London Irish and Gosforth.
I’d spent the best part of 40 minutes playing with a dislocated shoulder at the Parcs Des Princes in 1978. By then six replacements were allowed but crazily you were only allowed to use two – by doctor’s agreement. As Andy Maxwell and Peter Dixon had already gone off we’d have been down to 14 men if I’d left the pitch too. Fellow prop Mike Burton said, ‘You can’t go off, you’re one of us’, so I put my hand in my pocket and carried on. It probably wasn’t the wisest thing I’ve ever done.
I decided to retire from international rugby the following year, after winning eight caps, to help Leicester out as they were losing lots of players to international call-ups. When I packed in playing, I built my own farm in Cornwall and put all my energies into that. After a while I was persuaded back into rugby and into coaching by Cornwall’s youth development officer Frank Butler, who later managed the academy at Bath. I helped out with Cornwall U21s and a few local clubs before becoming involved on a semi-pro basis with Exeter, where Ian Bremner was coach at the time. He was a big part in Exeter’s evolution but I didn’t care for the way he went about his business and left to concentrate on running SWERA (South West of England Rugby Academy).
It was Rob Baxter who got me back to the Chiefs as he wanted some help with the scrum. After a short spell as caretaker coach I became team manager and academy manager. I love working at Exeter because it is a club that has kept hold of its identity. Rob has been instrumental in that. I recommended him to the board as head coach and he’s not looked back.