My Life in Rugby: Rob Hardwick – former Coventry, London Irish and England prop

Playing for Coventry and treading the same turf as my heroes had done was something I’d always aspired to when I watched the team play as a youngster in the early 80s. I’m immensely proud that I managed to fulfil that ambition.
I earned my one England cap – as a replacement against Italy at Twickenham in 1996 – while I was still with Cov’.  I think Danny Grewcock was the last player to achieve that feat. I also sat on the bench on another five occasions. Sometimes things go for you and sometimes they don’t, and that was just the way it was with me and England. To be honest, I probably didn’t train hard enough or have the self-belief at the time, plus better players like Jason Leonard and Graham Rowntree were ahead of me.
Coventry were by no means the force of old when I was there but we did get to within a whisker of winning promotion back to the top flight in the 1996/97 season, when we beat London Irish by two points in the first leg of the play-offs only to lose by a bigger margin in the return game at Sunbury. The highlight of that season, however, was captaining Coventry to victory against a star-studded Newcastle side at Coundon Road. It was a really physical game watched by a crowd pushing 10,000 and I remember having to have 20 stitches put in above my eye after being caught by a stray boot from Dean Ryan. Jez Harris won it for us with a late drop goal. They got their own back when they battered us at their place but that first game remains one of my most cherished memories in rugby.
Things went a bit pear-shaped at Coventry after professionalism came in and I swapped one great club for another, after deciding to move to London Irish. A new group of players had been thrown together but we formed a special bond and, being the club’s centenary season, there was always a party-like atmosphere at Sunbury. Travelling teams would make a diversion to call in and have a few beers before continuing on with their journey home. We weren’t a bad team under Dick Best either.
After a couple of seasons at London Irish I took up a new challenge in France’s top division with La Rochelle. That 1999/2000 season was a massive eye-opener. You were literally on your toes all the time waiting for a punch to the face or an eye gouge. We only lost at home once and beat Stade Francais by 40 points; it was a great learning experience.
I re-joined London Irish when Brendan Venter had charge. As a player he was an animal on the pitch but as a coach he had a calming influence on the squad. That really helped when we played – and beat – Northampton in the 2002 Powergen Cup final. We’d had a good run in seeing off Bath, Gloucester and Harlequins on our way to Twickenham but, even so, we were still massive underdogs against a very strong Saints side. Nevertheless, we knew what we had to do to get the job done and everything went to plan perfectly. We were 24-0 up at half-time and there was no way we were ever going to lose from there.
On retiring at 37 I spent some time coaching at Richmond, before getting involved with a Sky Sports-funded project called Changing Lives, which involved working with disaffected kids.
I’m currently director of rugby at Bedford Modern School where I coach from U9s through to U18s. All of my sons play rugby. The eldest, Will, is a scrum-half and the captain of the school’s First XV. Tom and Robin are both at Rugby School. Tom played fly-half for England U16s last season and is with Leicester Tigers and 14-year-old Robin’s a tight-head and is enormous.