Open Side: The Official Autobiography
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HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
FIRST EDITION
© Sam Warburton 2019
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photograph © Andrew Brown
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Sam Warburton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Extract from Western Mail, 17 October, 2011 courtesy of Western Mail/Media Wales
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Source ISBN: 9780008336578
Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008336608
Version: 2019-07-23
DEDICATION
To my wife Rachel, daughter Anna, my family and close friends – thanks for being on the journey with me, supporting me and helping me through all the tough times. I could never have done it without you.
CONTENTS
1 Cover
2 Title Page
3 Copyright
4 Dedication
5 Contents
6 PROLOGUE
7 1 WHITCHURCH
8 LEADERSHIP 1: PERSONALITY
9 2 TOYOTA STADIUM, CHICAGO
10 LEADERSHIP 2: PROFESSIONALISM
11 3 EDEN PARK
12 LEADERSHIP 3: PERFORMANCE
13 4 MILLENNIUM STADIUM
14 LEADERSHIP 4: PERSPECTIVE
15 5 ETIHAD STADIUM, MELBOURNE
16 LEADERSHIP 5: POSITIVITY
17 6 TWICKENHAM
18 LEADERSHIP 6: PERSISTENCE
19 7 WESTPAC STADIUM, WELLINGTON
20 LEADERSHIP 7: PEOPLE
21 EPILOGUE
22 APPENDIX A: THE FUTURE OF THE GAME
23 APPENDIX B: MY BEST WELSH XV
24 APPENDIX C: MY BEST INTERNATIONAL XV
25 About the Publisher
LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter
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PROLOGUE
Friday, 30 June 2017
The Rydges Hotel, Wellington, New Zealand
Two in the morning.
Can’t sleep. The witching hour, when the darkness comes flooding in: thoughts tumbling and cascading over each other like a Snowdonia river in full spate. The darkness comes flooding in, and it’s all I can do to stop it drowning me.
Everything hurts. My body, my mind, my heart. Everything. I’m a wreck.
It’s easier to list the parts of me that aren’t in pain. My eyelashes. That’s pretty much it. I’ve had more than 20 injuries over my career: the concussions, the broken jaw, the plate in my eye socket, the trapped shoulder nerve, the hamstring torn clean off the bone, the knee ligaments.
Before I go out to play these days, I have to neck painkillers while the physios strap me up like an Egyptian mummy. I have to stand there butt naked in front of them, cupping my twig and berries, while they bind my knees, my ankles, my shoulders and my elbows.
It’s not just tonight. It’s the relentless grind: week on week, month on month, year on year. Smash and be smashed. Try to recover. Smash and be smashed again. The equivalent of strapping myself into a car like a crash test dummy and driving it at a wall every weekend.
I get out of bed. Shards of pain as my feet touch the floor. I push myself slowly upright, gritting my teeth as the aches flare and settle.
If my body’s only at around 70 per cent fitness, my mind feels around half that. I’m exhausted, but also wired: antsy, yet craving rest. Yes, these are the small hours when everything seems worse, but even in broad daylight the doubts and questions are never far away.
Sam Warburton shouldn’t be captain.
Sam Warburton shouldn’t be playing.
Sam Warburton’s past it.
What I know is that there are plenty of people out there who think that.
What I fear is that they might be right.
I take one step, gingerly, then another, and another. Walking – hobbling, more like – across the carpet over to the window. I pull back the curtains and look out.
Below me is the Wellington waterfront. It’s quiet and empty now, but earlier this evening it was packed, as it will be later tonight and tomorrow night. Many of these people will be wearing red rugby shirts and will have saved up for years to come all the way across the world just to watch us play.
Because tomorrow evening I’m going to lead out the British and Irish Lions for the second of three Tests against the All Blacks. We lost the first in Auckland last week, which means we have to win this one to stay in the series. I’ve played in some big games in my life – World Cup semi-finals, Grand Slam deciders, Lions Tests against Australia – but nothing that comes close to this.
Nothing that comes remotely close.
The best of the Home Nations, a once-every-four-years touring team, against the double world champions. I came off the bench in Auckland, but now I’m starting and I simply have to deliver.
It should be the highlight of my career. It feels like anything but.
This is a game that’s been the biggest part of my life for almost two decades, a game that has largely defined me. It’s a game I love. Rather, it’s a game I thought I loved. Right now, I hate it.
I want to be one of those fans, on the piss and singing their hearts out, with no problem more pressing than who gets the next round in. Instead, I’m here, torturing myself with questions to which I have no answer. Why? Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I putting myself through all this pain, all this pressure, when I could be doing something – anything – else? Why am I in a job which right now I detest?
Round and round and round. Body, mind and heart. Physical stress, mental stress and emotional stress, all working on and off each other. I feel as though I’m in a submarine going deeper and deeper, springing leaks as the hull creaks and flexes, and soon I’ll come to the point of no return, the moment when the pressure gets too much and crushes me like a tin can.
Two in the morning, and no one to talk to.
For once in my career I’ve chosen to have a room on my own rather than share with a team-mate. It’s the captain’s prerogative, to have a room to himself, but one I’ve rarely used as I don’t like to be set apart from the other boys.
This time, I have. I’ve told everyone it’s because I need the sleep, which is true – my daughter Anna’s not far off a year old, and like all babies she’s up more times in the night than a vampire – but it’s not the whole truth either.
It’s because I need the space too. The six weeks of this tour are what my entire career has been building towards, and I want to win so much, so much, that the desire is almost in itself a physical pain. Another physical pain, more like.
A submarine. A volcano. All this pain bubbling up inside me, and if I don’t deal with it, it’s going to explode and consume me in all its molten fury.
I need to talk to someone. There are several people I could call, but there’s only one person I know will really understand. I dial her number.
‘Sam?’ Her voice is full of concern. It’s lunchtime back home in Cardiff. She knows what time it is where I am, and that I wouldn’t be phoning for no reason.
‘I’ve had enough, Mum.’ My throat is tight with the effort of not bursting into tears. ‘I really have. I’m just going to go.’
‘Go where?’
‘To the airport. Do a bunk. Leave all my kit here, get on the first plane home. I’ll be in the air before they realise I’ve gone.’
I didn’t, of course. Can you imagine the headlines?
LIONS CAPTAIN DOES MIDNIGHT FLIT.
WARBURTON QUITS.
THE RUNAWAY SKIPPER.
I’d never have lived it down, and rightly so.
But at the time I was deadly serious. And no one knew, apart from my mum. She talked me down: told me that I didn’t owe anything to anyone, so all I had to do was get through this week and the next and then the series would be over and I could do what I wanted.
She was right, of course. She knew the way love for and hatred of rugby oscillated within me, because they did for her too. She loved what the game had given me and the pleasure I’d got from it, but she hated seeing me beaten up, or under the knife, or criticised. Even though I was 6 ft 2 and 16 stone, I was still her little boy.
No one knew, apart from my mum. The spectators in the Westpac Stadium the following evening certainly didn’t know when they watched one of the most titanic and dramatic Test matches imaginable. And there’s no reason they should have known. The rugby public see what the players want them to see, and no more.
I played most of my career with 7 on my back. For me 7 has, in rugby terms, always been a sacred number. This book is arranged according to that number. There are seven main chapters, each centred on a different rugby ground in which something important in my life happened: a red card or two, a debut, a barnstorming run, a horrific injury, a goal-line stand, a split-second decision with a referee.
In between those chapters are seven sections centred around different aspects of leadership (Personality, Professionalism, Performance, Perspective, Positivity, Persistence and People), because over the years as captain for Wales and the Lions I’ve learned a bit about all of those too.
Number 7 is the openside flanker, the one who packs down in a scrum furthest from the near touchline and therefore has more of the field to patrol than number 6, the blindside. I’ve played a bit at six too, and in writing this I realised that openside and blindside aren’t just positions on the pitch. They’re also reflections of how much people really know about the life of a professional rugby player.
Most of the time, that knowledge is the blindside, the narrow side. You see us on match day, and maybe in social media videos or promotional appearances too. That’s some of our life, but it’s only a very, very small part. The rest of it, those wide expanses which the number 7 needs to patrol, is kept hidden.
This is the story of those expanses, the parts of the iceberg beneath the surface. It’s a story of highs and lows, of triumph and disaster. It’s a story of what it’s really like to be in the thick of it, on and off the pitch. It’s not every rugby player’s story, but it’s my story, told as clearly and honestly as I can.
This is my open side.
1
WHITCHURCH
51.5132°N, 3.2234°W
2002
We’re playing Llanhari. Their number 8’s a big lad, running to fat, and he’s nasty too. We’re not yet a quarter of the way through the match when I see him choking our scrum-half: proper choking, lifting him off his feet while holding him by the neck, all that.
I see red. I smash into this lad as hard as I can, picking him up and throwing him down, head first. I don’t know how dangerous this is, of course; none of us do. I’m just enraged that he’s picking on one of my team-mates, and the smallest lad on the pitch to boot. Besides, dump tackling’s my trademark, my way of stamping my authority on the game and getting my team behind me. In each game I play, I don’t look to dump the smallest guy on their team, but the biggest one.
Having seen red once, I see it again when the ref sends me off. I can’t complain, but equally I won’t apologise. I’m not a dirty player, and I never do anything illegal unless provoked; but if someone starts something, I’m determined to be the one to finish it. And I’ll never back down from defending a team-mate. Even a chopsing scrum-half, talking back to people.
1995. ‘I want to be a footballer.’
I’m seven years old. Mum’s putting me and my twin brother Ben to bed. We’ve been playing football all afternoon, like we always do. There’s a grass verge on the corner of our street, and we play there for hours at a time. The neighbours must hate us, but we don’t know, and even if we did we wouldn’t care. We’re just kids playing football.
When he’s not on shift at Whitchurch fire station, Dad plays with us. He was pretty good when he was younger – he had a sweet left foot and a trial for Bristol Rovers – but he couldn’t be bothered with the whole professional lifestyle, certainly not in the days before the big money came flooding in. He just wanted to play locally. Now he teaches us how to pass, and control, and shoot, and head the ball: all the things that will make us better players.
We’ve both got little Spurs kits. Mine has ‘Sam, 9’ on the back; Ben’s has ‘Ben, 10.’ Dad’s been a Spurs fan all his life; he was born in the northwest London suburb of Kingsbury, even though his family are originally from Bury, and he came to Cardiff via Birmingham. ‘Once Tottenham, always Tottenham,’ he says. Playing for Spurs and Wales, that’s my dream.
‘Really?’ Mum says. ‘You want to be a footballer?’
She had Ben and me five weeks premature. One of the maternity nurses at Heath Hospital took one look at how small we were and said the words no self-respecting Welsh person ever wants to hear. Mum and Dad have, laughing, told us often enough what those words were.
‘Well,’ I reply, mimicking what the maternity nurse said, ‘I’m never going to be a rugby player, am I?’
Ben and I are playing with our toys on the floor. Our favourites are Action Man (obviously) and Biker Mice from Mars. We take their clothes off and play with them. When Dad finds them naked, he puts their clothes back on. We take their clothes off again when we next play with them.
‘Carolyn,’ Dad says to Mum. ‘I think the boys might be gay.’
Actually, we’re just transfixed by the muscle definition on Action Man and the Biker Mice.
1997. Ben and I play centre-back for Llanishen Fach Primary School. We’re as good as most kids our age, but now and then we come up against someone special. And there’s no one more special than this kid who plays for Eglwys Newydd. We know he must be good even before the match begins, because he’s wearing adidas Predators.
He’s got everything: ridiculous levels of skill, pace to burn and stamina that means he can keep going all match. When he dribbles, it’s like the ball is stuck to his laces. He’s so good that we need half a team to stop him, and even if we do manage that it just means we’ve had to leave two or three of his team-mates unmarked.
He might be only nine years old, but news of his talent has spread far and wide. We hear parents whispering to each other on the touchline. Did you see him play at that tournament in Newport? There were some pro scouts there, you know. Southampton have signed him to their academy.
Look on the bright side, Ben and I tell each other. When we go to Whitchurch in a couple of years, he’ll be on our side rather than against us.
We ask what his name is.
He’s called Gareth Bale.
There’s a special needs section at school, for kids with learning difficulties and the like. One of these kids latches onto me a bit and follows me into my lessons even though it makes him late for his own. Some of my mates laugh at him and tell him to get lost, but I always try and make time for him.
We’re playing cricket in the yard, and this same kid is there. He’s batting and he’s not very good. He swipes at the ball, missing it by a mile. The lad playing wicketkeeper catches it and throws the ball in the air. ‘You’re out,’ he says.
‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s not.’
‘He is.’
‘He was nowhere near it, and you know it.’
‘He hit it.’
‘You only want him out so someone else can have a go.’
‘Well, he’s rubbish, isn’t he?’
‘If you want him out, then you get him out.’
‘He is out.’
The argument turns into a scrap, and it only ends when the headmistress comes to break us up. In her office, she asks me what happened, and I tell her the truth. This kid was being bullied, and I hate bullies. I don’t even know where that comes from, just that I do. I can’t stand bullying, and I won’t stand by when it happens and can do something about it.
1998. Ten years old, Llanishen Fach. We’re playing touch rugby: Bluebirds v Blackbirds. The Bluebirds are the rugby boys, even though they’ve named their team after Cardiff City football club; the Blackbirds are the footballers (or, as the rugby boys like to call them, the losers). I’m playing for the Blackbirds. I’ve never played rugby, no one in our family’s ever played, I don’t like the look of it, and a game of touch doesn’t make me change my mind. It’s a rubbish game. You can’t pass it forwards, you can’t tackle people, you can’t kick it.
I must have changed at least one of the teacher’s minds, though, as I’m picked to play in the next rugby match. Full contact, not touch. They want me to play on the wing, as I’m quick: when it comes to sports-day sprints, I’m either winning them or pretty close.
I don’t want to play. I really don’t want to.
Match day comes. I’m terrified. I go from lesson to lesson, wondering how I can pretend to be injured, or hoping that the match will be called off. The clock ticks round. We’re due to play after the school day’s ended, so when the bell goes and all the kids who aren’t playing go home as usual, that’s just what I do. Sneak out, follow them through the gates and leg it home.
‘I thought you had a match,’ Dad says over tea.
‘Got cancelled,’ I reply, quite a lot more coolly than I feel.
Next day at school, no one says anything. All morning I’m waiting for one of the teachers to ask where I was, but they don’t. By lunchtime I’m beginning to think I’ve got away with it. I’m in the yard with my mates, playing around, when I sense more than see the other kids stop what they’re doing.
I turn around. The headmaster, Frank Rees, is coming towards me. The whole place is still; there’s not a kid born who’d want to miss one of their fellow pupils being reamed out in front of the whole school. It’s the kind of thing they’ll be talking about for weeks afterwards. They all back away a little, as if the trouble I’m clearly in is going to be somehow contagious, but they make sure to stay well within earshot.
‘Where were you yesterday afternoon?’ Mr Rees asks.
It doesn’t really matter what excuse I give, as he knows it’s going to be a lie. He gives me a bollocking: not a shouting or screaming one, as he’s not that kind of man, but stern and strict, nonetheless. If you’re picked, he says, you play. It’s not up to you to decide whether or not you want to.
He’s right, of course, and I deserve it. By the time I get home that afternoon, he’s already spoken to my parents. They tell me the same thing: don’t ever bunk off again.
By the end of the year I’m playing for East Wales.
‘That’s why I picked you,’ Mr Rees says. ‘I knew how good you could be.’
1999. Being good at rugby isn’t yet enough for me. I don’t love it, not in the way I love football.
Cardiff Schools trial. I’m so nervous that I’m crying in the car. Just relax, Dad says, you’ll be fine. But I’m not. I don’t want this pressure. School matches are one thing, but this is a step up. I play badly, and not by accident. I do it on purpose, so I won’t get picked for Cardiff Schools.
It works. I don’t get picked. I’m glad.
Two weeks later, I’m playing for the school against Willowsbrook. No one’s watching, so I don’t have to throttle back or sabotage myself. I score four tries.
One of the Willowsbrook fathers comes over to Dad afterwards.
‘I’m a selector for Cardiff Schools,’ he says. ‘Why couldn’t your boy have played like that at the trial?’
2000. I’m at secondary school in Whitchurch, a school so massive (more than 2,000 kids) that they basically have to split it in two. With the move comes a jump in rugby too, from ten-a-side to the full 15.
Cardiff Schools, away to Bridgend. My first time on a bus with a bunch of strangers. I don’t say much. I’m quiet, shy, watchful; not one of the inner circle who colonise the back row of the bus as though by right.
The coach tells me to stand on the sidelines. I’m not sure if I’m playing or if I’m a sub. Bridgend ship it out to their winger. He comes haring down the touchline towards me. What am I supposed to do?
Best take no chances, I reckon. I fly onto the pitch and smash him into next week. I’m still on the ground when I hear their players’ disbelieving protests, and a fair bit of verbals too.
‘Bloody hell,’ says our coach. ‘You’re on the bench, you muppet.’
I come on in the second half. The Bridgend winger gives me a wide berth when I do.
We reach the semi-finals of the Welsh Cup. Playing against Pontypool, I put one of their boys into touch, and as I’m getting up I hear one of the coaches whistle softly and say, ‘I’ve never seen an Under-12 hit so hard.’
They put me at openside, number 7, and instantly I fall in love with the position. A lot of the good kids play 7, so that’s a compliment in itself, but it’s more what the position demands. Sevens aren’t as quick as the wingers, as strong as the props or as skilful as the fly-half, but they do have to be reasonably quick and strong and skilful: good all-rounders, the decathletes of a rugby team.
And they’re always involved, which I absolutely love. I don’t play rugby either to stand shivering near the touchline or to have my head up a prop’s arse for 80 minutes. I want to be where the action is. When you’re a 7 and doing your job properly, the ball’s never far away, whether you’re running support lines for your team-mates or tackling the oppo.