My Life in Rugby: Lee Byrne – former Lions and Wales full-back

It would have been nice to reach 50 caps for Wales, especially as I felt I was playing some good rugby for Clermont, one of the top clubs in Europe at the time I was dropped, but I certainly can’t complain about what I achieved in the game. If someone had told me I’d get 46 Wales caps plus one for the Lions and win a Grand Slam, I’d have snapped their hand off!
I have a lot to thank Scarlets for as they paved the way for me to make it as a professional.
Prior to joining them I’d played for my hometown club, Bridgend Athletic, and Tondu and had been working as a carpenter, after leaving school at the age of 15 with no qualifications. I’m dyslexic and unfortunately it went unnoticed back in those days. Dyslexia also made it difficult for me to remember calls on the rugby pitch.
Regan King, at Clermont, was one of the few people I opened up to about this and he was a massive help. On the flip-side, being dyslexic meant I had better than average special awareness, and I was able to see gaps in a defence before others. I found this out when I was officially diagnosed last year. Thankfully, there is much help around for kids with dyslexia nowadays and I am proud to be a trustee of the Cardiff-based charity, Tomorrow’s Generation.
I won my first Wales cap under Mike Ruddock, against the All Blacks in December 2005, but it was a couple of years before things started to really happen for me on the international front. I was playing great rugby with the Ospreys in a side that had won the Magners Leagues and Anglo-Welsh Cups. Andy Howell of the Western Mail  dubbed us ‘The Galacticos’, and it’s easy to see why with players like Justin Marshall, the late, great Jerry Collins and Marty Holah to name just a few. Sadly, we let a golden opportunity to win the 2010 Heineken Cup slip from our grasp when we lost by a point in the quarter-finals to Biarritz in San Sebastien. I’m convinced we’d have gone on to lift the trophy.
I was one of 13 Ospreys selected by Warren Gatland for the game against England at Twickenham in 2008, when we became the first Welsh team to win there for 20 years and whilst I didn’t have a spectacular game, I scored a try and things seemed to take off from there, culminating in the Grand Slam.
The 2009 Lions tour came at the perfect time for me. I scored my all-time favourite try in the first game against a scratch Royal XV and was, to quote Sky Sports’ Stuart Barnes, one of the standout players on the early part of the tour despite needing ongoing treatment for Plantar Fascia, the worst injury I’ve had that’s not needed surgery. That, and a dislocated thumb, brought an end to my tour after the second test.
With Scott Johnson moving on and financial issues starting to hit home, the great Ospreys team started to break up, and I had no hesitation in accepting an offer from Clermont, who’d tried to buy me out of my contract once before. I learnt so much about back three play from Sitiveni Sivivatu whilst I was there, and I loved being a part of a club where the fans treated you like a god.
Unfortunately, there was more Heineken Cup heartache in 2013 when we had controlled the final against Toulon in Dublin only to lose to a late Delon Armitage try.
I had an offer to stay on in France but the time was right to move back to Wales and I signed for the Dragons. It was great to captain the side but I only played a few games after suffering a bad tear to the rotator cuff in my shoulder. I was having trouble sleeping because of it, and once the doctors told me it would take 18 months to heal, I knew enough was enough.