My Life in Rugby: Daniel Browne – former Northampton, Bath and London Welsh lock

Born and raised in New Zealand, I grew up marvelling at the skills of Zinzan Brooke. He had it all. Wayne Shelford, my coach at Auckland Blues U21s, was another inspiration. How can you not fail to be impressed by a guy who played on with a ripped scrotum?
I left New Zealand in 2000 to go travelling for a few years. A few turned into 16 … and counting. Bedford was my first port of call and I had a great time before Grenoble offered me a two-year deal. Homesickness and poor form took hold in my first season, which was also very nearly my last.
I stuck at it and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my time there. I think the catalyst was moving to No.8, where I won the man-of-the-match award in my first game there, against defending Top 14 champions Biarritz.
After meeting a nice English girl, I decided to move back across the Channel and signed for Northampton, where I spent two fantastic years. Reaching the latter stages of the Heineken Cup was great, relegation wasn’t.
I was selected to play for the Barbarians while at Saints. We played Scot-land at Murrayfield and then headed to Georgia where the fun really started. None of us had been there before and seeing a load of naked blokes scrubbing each other with the dirtiest looking rags at a Turkish baths was a bit of an eye-opener. One of the lads even had a gun pulled on him by a jealous boyfriend who’d taken exception to his girlfriend being chatted up.
My father hails from Donegal and I was attracted to the idea of playing in Ireland and staking a claim for international honours. So, when Munster came in for me I jumped at the chance of looking around the place.
Declan Kidney, who was coach at the time, picked me up right outside the airport entrance but it was raining so hard I was still drenched by the time I got in the car. As soon as I heard that that was a typical day in Munster, my heart sank!
Munster made me a very good offer to go but I opted for Bath, on the same terms and I don’t have any regrets because the next three years were the best of my career.
I managed to get in front of Zak Feaunati in the pecking order early on, which was no mean feat as he was a real fans’ favourite, and at the end of my first season we beat Worcester to win the European Challenge Cup.
You felt like a rock star in Bath because the fans recognised you wherever you went, they were great. Unfortunately, a bad foot injury kept me out for seven months towards the end of my contract. Upon gaining fitness I was keen to fix up a new club before going back home to New Zealand for a break.
Leinster were showing some interest but they were reluctant to make any firm decisions until Joe Schmidt came on board as the new head coach. A few days after I’d shaken hands on a deal to join Leeds, Joe rang to offer me a two-year deal. I guess that’s just how life turns out sometimes.
Life as a Leeds player was certainly different to what I’d known at Bath. The city was much more Rugby League-orientated. My wife and I welcomed our first son during that first year in Leeds so it’ll always have a special place in our lives. After relegation, I re-joined Grenoble. They were a club on the up at the time and things went well.
As a family, we wanted to move back to London where I spent the last three years of my career at London Welsh. We’d assembled a team of real battlers with an amazing team spirit and we continually punched above our weight until that five point deduction. We may not have done that well on the field but we certainly enjoyed ourselves off it.
*As told to Jon Newcombe