Open Side: The Official Autobiography

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TOYOTA STADIUM, CHICAGO

41.8623°N, 87.6167°W

Saturday, 6 June 2009. Wales v USA

The USA kick off, Ryan Jones catches it, is hit in the tackle – and is knocked out. Literally in the first minute. I’m on the bench as back-row cover. If Ryan comes off, I’m on. Robin turns to me. ‘Get ready.’

Ryan doesn’t come off immediately. He stays on, hoping that if he’s out there long enough he’ll recover. Am I coming on or not? Ryan doesn’t look too great, but it’s not my call.

Thoughts whirl through my head. What do you want? To come on at 50, like you presumed you would? Or now, before you have time to think about it? Are you ready? Doesn’t matter. You have to be ready when they need you.

With 19 minutes gone, Robin and the medics have seen enough. Ryan’s groggy and not playing anywhere like he usually does.

Off he comes. On I go. There’s more than an hour left to play.

This is it. I’m a Wales player now, and no one can take that away from me.

2007. I’m playing for Glamorgan Wanderers when I tear my hamstring. It keeps me out of the whole of Wales’s 2008 Under-20s Six Nations campaign. It’s pretty much the first time I’ve ever been injured, certainly badly enough to keep me out for a match or two. It feels like the end of the world, watching my body waste away while I have to rest and let nature take its course. As if all the good work I’ve put in so far has been for nothing.

Injury #1. It won’t be my last, not by any means.

2008. ‘You should get an agent.’ That’s what I hear time and again. A couple of the other academy boys have already got people interested in them, and of course a lot of the senior Blues players have them already. I get a few names recommended to me, and a few calls from agents sounding me out. They’re all slick and have the sales patter down to a tee, but I bide my time. I want an agent who’s out for me more than for himself, who’s going to look to manage my career in the long term rather than just getting as much money as possible up front.

Then I meet Derwyn. He used to be a player himself – 19 Welsh caps and more than 150 games for Cardiff – so he knows the system and what the game demands.

‘What do you want to achieve?’ he asks. I’ve heard him ask this of some of the other boys at the academy too, and they all answer the same way. I want to turn professional. I want to play regional. I want to play for Wales.

‘I want to be the best 7 in the world,’ I say.

He doesn’t laugh or make a face. Just says he can help me do exactly that.

I sign with him. It’s one of the best moves I’ll ever make.

First day training with the senior Blues squad. I grew up with a Blues season ticket: watch them at the Arms Park on Friday night, play for Whitchurch on Saturday morning. All that time, I’d dreamed about making the jump from one to the other. And now I’ve done it.

You’re good enough to be here, I tell myself. They wouldn’t have signed you if they didn’t think you were up to it.

‘Hello, Sam.’

It’s Martyn Williams: club captain, Wales legend, and my rugby hero. Also current holder of the Blues and Wales number 7 shirt. He was one of the main reasons why I wanted to play rugby. I remember watching the 2005 Six Nations and not a game would go by where he wouldn’t get man of the match or score a try. He was absolutely amazing.

He shakes my hand – the very first person to do so at the club – and takes me under his wing.

This is one of the bittersweet things about rugby, that you can end up competing for the same position as someone you idolised as a schoolboy, and maybe even usurping them. Right now, that’s a way off, but it won’t be for long.

And maybe Martyn sees it before I do. Later, he’ll tell me: ‘I knew you were going to take my spot as soon as you walked in. I saw you training and I knew, Christ, I haven’t got long left here.’

September. I’m feeling good. I might have missed the Under-20s Six Nations, but I was back in the side – captaining the side, in fact – for the summer Junior World Cup, where we reached the semi-final. I’ve just signed for the Blues, my first pro contract. It’s the last pre-season game, and I’m playing well.

Then I go over on my shoulder. It’s weird, because there’s no pain, but when I press the bone it bounces.

You’ve detached your collarbone, the physios say. The ligaments have gone round the ACJ, the acromioclavicular joint. It doesn’t hurt because there’s no nerve damage there. But you have to let it heal.

You’ve also got a hairline fracture of the knee, which will need an operation, so this is as good a time to do it as any.

How long?

Five months.

Five months?!

Injury #2.

The Blues boys are very sympathetic. They put Natasha Bedingfield’s I Bruise Easily – or Warby’s Song, as it’s now known – on the gym stereo at full volume.

According to the Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Clearly no injury, no matter how bad, is on the same scale as a genuine bereavement, but the same five stages apply in both cases.

Denial kicks in more or less the moment I get injured. It isn’t that bad. The pain will wear off soon. I didn’t even fall that badly. How can I be injured when I’m in such good condition?

Once the medical staff have made their diagnosis, that’s when anger kicks in. This is so unfair. Someone else will come into the team, take my place and play so well that I’ll never get it back. I’ve got all this energy and I have to sit here like a little old man. It’s all I want to do, play rugby. Is that too much to ask? Oh – and it hurts. It really hurts.

I can’t stay angry forever, though. The anger subsides and gives way to rationalisation, which brings with it bargaining. If I do all my rehab, then I’ll get back to where I was. If only I can get back in time for this match, then I don’t mind missing a few less important ones further down the line. I’ll swap this cruciate ligament injury for a couple of ankle strains.

And when the bargaining doesn’t work, which of course it doesn’t, that’s when the depression comes. I’m stuck on my own in the gym while the rest of the boys are training and playing. I’m on the outside of the squad looking in, part of it but not part of it. Sportsmen don’t like injury, because injury means weakness, and when they see it they move away in case it infects them too. Every day is such a slog. I’m not making progress quickly enough.

But I won’t be a pro player for very long if I let the depression and moping linger. This is where the acceptance comes in. Everyone gets injured. There are always silver linings to things. I can work on different aspects of my fitness. I can take a mental break from the relentless grind.

These stages don’t always happen in strict sequence, they don’t all last the same amount of time, and they won’t remain constant throughout my career. Right now, when I’m still young and inexperienced, the anger and frustration last longer and feel more acute. Later on, when I’m more used to being injured and more secure in my place in the team, I’ll be able to get to acceptance much more quickly.

Friday, 3 April 2009. My first game for the Blues is a Magners League fixture up in Edinburgh. Early April, a bit of a nothing match on most fronts. We’re mid-table only six weeks from the end of the season, and we’ve rested two-thirds of our first team ahead of the Heineken Cup quarter-final next week. The match is nothing to write home about: one of those stop-start affairs with no real fluency. Edinburgh win 16–3.

A bit of a nothing match for everybody but me, that is. I’m excited to play, of course, but I’m still only 20 and it shows. It’s not that I play badly; more that I’m not strong enough. I’ve never played against people of this calibre before, and I feel a bit out of my depth. I’m used to being among the most physically imposing players on any team, and it’s a shock to find myself being muscled off the ball time and again. My opponents are gnarly and grizzled; they know all the tricks, all the body positions, all the little niggles out of the ref’s sight. I’m a greenhorn.

There’s only one solution, the same one there’s always been. Work. Work harder. Work smarter.

I’ve only played a handful of games for the Blues when I get the call-up. The call-up, that is: the Wales summer tour to Canada and the USA.

It feels both weird and entirely normal. Weird, in that I’m still only 20 and pretty inexperienced at senior level; but normal, in that if I’m going to be the best 7 in the world then I have to start playing for my country sooner or later.

It’s the first time I’ve ever flown business class. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop: the seats, the films, the food. All the way over, I keep sneaking a peek at the official tour guide, and my head shot in it. I try to act cool. Not sure how well I succeed.

Four years ago, men like Dwayne Peel and Ryan Jones were playing for the Lions against the All Blacks, and I was watching them on TV on Saturday mornings. Now they’re sitting alongside me. For them, this tour’s a step down from what they’re used to. For me, it’s just the opposite. I remind myself that they were in my position once: the newbie, the hopeful.

I keep my head down, as far as possible. I don’t know many people, I’m conscious that I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m also feeling homesick. It’s only a two-week tour, but when you’ve spent all your life living either at home or within half a mile of it, that’s a long time to be several thousand miles away.

I sit in the team room and watch what the others are doing, looking to pick up pointers as to how senior pros handle themselves and prepare for matches. Be like a sponge. Soak it all up.

Saturday, 30 May. Our first match is against Canada. I’m a sub, which is always much harder than starting. When you’re starting, you know your timings and you can work backwards off them. When you’re a sub, all that’s out of the window. You might be on in the first minute, or the fiftieth, or not at all. If you use an energy gel, when do you take it? Too early or too late, and it won’t be effective. The starting XV have first dibs on strapping and so on in the dressing-room, which is of course entirely right, but it does mean that the subs can feel rushed in their own preparations. Everything’s a little bit out of sync when you’re a sub, basically.

We make reasonably heavy weather of the game. At one stage, not long after half-time, it’s 16–16, and we have to work hard to get more than one score ahead and close it out 32–23. All through the second half I’m waiting for coach Robin McBryde to give me the nod. There are seven of us on the bench, and one by one they go on until it’s just me and Nicky Robinson left. Canada have emptied their bench, but we’re still sitting there like lemons.

Two minutes left, and the game looks safe. Come on, I think. Give me a runout. Even if I don’t touch the ball or make a tackle, at least I’ll have got it over with. Good or bad, long or short, it doesn’t matter.

For almost 80 minutes I’ve been on edge, warming up now and then, trying not to get ahead of myself but still being ready for anything.

It never happens. The final whistle goes, and I’m still on the bench. What a comedown. After all that, what a massive anti-climax. I feel like crying. I’ve got so much energy that I could run round the pitch non-stop for all of those 80 minutes I didn’t get to play.

That night, on the phone to Mum, I do cry. I let all my frustration flow out while she listens and does her best to comfort me.

‘Mum,’ I say, ‘can you put Ted on?’

Ted’s my dog. He’s a rough collie, and he’s named after Teddy Sheringham, one of my Spurs heroes. He’s very vocal, and he likes to talk to me: howling and woofing and barking when I make noises. His favourite sounds are the theme tune to Coronation Street and the sound of an ice-cream van, so I sit in my room in Toronto and sing these down the phone to him. Ted howls them back to me, which makes me start crying all over again.

Saturday, 6 June. One week later. We’re playing the USA at Toyota Stadium in Chicago. Again I’m on the bench, and I’m thinking that if I don’t get on this time I’m going to explode. Surely they’ll bring me on? What would be the point of taking me all the way to North America and not giving me any game time?

Eight and a half thousand miles away, though I’m only very dimly aware of it, the British and Irish Lions are playing Free State on their tour of South Africa.

Here in Chicago, the USA kick off, Ryan catches it, is hit in the tackle – and is knocked out. Literally in the first minute. I’m back-row cover. If Ryan comes off, I’m on. Robin turns to me. ‘Get ready.’

Ryan doesn’t come off immediately. He stays on, hoping that if he’s out there long enough he’ll recover. Am I coming on or not? Ryan doesn’t look too great, but it’s not my call.

Thoughts whirl through my head. What do you want? To come on at 50, like you presumed you would? Or now, before you have time to think about it? Are you ready? Doesn’t matter. You have to be ready when they need you.

With 19 minutes gone, Robin and the medics have seen enough. Ryan’s groggy and not playing anywhere like he usually does. Off he comes. On I go. There’s more than an hour left to play. This is it. I’m a Wales player now, and no one can take that away from me.

Blimey, it’s quick. Doesn’t matter that this is ‘only’ the USA, who are a rung or two down from the highest echelons of world rugby, and doesn’t matter that we run out easy winners, 48–15. It’s noticeably quicker than the Heineken Cup, which is itself noticeably quicker than the Magners League. It’s as though someone’s running it at normal speed plus a half. The passes, the runners, the tackles, all coming fast and relentless, and I have to concentrate more fiercely than ever before just to keep up.

That concentration and the physical effort take their toll – even though I didn’t play the first 20 minutes, I find myself cramping up with 10 minutes to go, which I find out later happens to lots of new caps as they get used to the pace of the game – but I play pretty well.

Back at the hotel, I find myself in the lift with team manager Alan Phillips.

‘You had a good game out there,’ he says.

‘Thank you.’

‘You know what I think? I think we’ve found the next Martyn Williams.’

Friday, 16 October. There’s a bug going round the Blues camp before we play a Heineken Cup match away to Sale Sharks. I’ve got it too, a bad chest infection, but even though I’m an international player now I still feel too young to assert myself properly. So I play. I feel terrible, and I play even worse than that. I give away two tries all on my own.

It’s the worst professional game I’ll ever play, but it teaches me another lesson: illness is as bad as an injury, so treat it like one. If you’ve got the flu or the shits, pull yourself out. The fans won’t know that you’re crook, and they won’t care either. You’re not doing yourself, your team or your reputation any favours. This isn’t playing for the local second XV, making up the numbers or filling in for a mate. This is your livelihood now. If you’re not there, you can’t play badly.

Friday, 13 November. My second cap against Samoa, but in many ways it feels like my first proper match: my first start, my first playing at 7, my first at home. Samoa have history in Cardiff – they won World Cup matches here in both 1991 (when they were called ‘Western Samoa’, leading to lots of resigned jokes about how it was lucky we hadn’t played the whole of Samoa) and 1999.

Just over one minute gone. We break through the middle and Dwayne feeds me on the inside. There’s no defender in front of me and for a split second I sense glory, but in the next stride David Lemi tackles me and then knocks the ball from my grasp just as I’m about to pop it up to Huw Bennett. Another reminder of how narrow the margins are at this level. In a club match, I could well have been in under the posts.

It’s a scrappy game – we’re playing in our change yellow kit, which doesn’t feel at all Welsh – and though we win 17–13, we should close it out much earlier than we do. I play pretty well, though a knock-on reminds me that Ben was right when he said my handling needs to improve, and like most of our forwards I seem to spend half the match clinging onto Henry Tuilagi, who’s basically a wrecking ball in a blue shirt and the hardest guy to tackle I’ve ever come across.

The next day, I’m going up an escalator in the St David’s 2 shopping centre when I hear someone saying, ‘That’s Sam Warburton.’ Rach and I try not to laugh, not because it’s not flattering but because it feels a bit weird. No one’s ever said ‘That’s Sam Warburton’ before. It’s the first tiny taste of something I’ll have to get used to over the years: not of being famous, because I genuinely don’t think that’s a word that can ever be applied to me, but of being locally well recognised.

Saturday, 28 November. I come off the bench against Australia. The match is memorable for two reasons.

First, Australia hammer us, scoring three tries in the first 25 minutes, and – though obviously I don’t yet know it – it’s the start of a miserable personal run in a Welsh shirt against Australia. By the time my career comes to an end I’ll have played for Wales against Australia ten times, and lost the lot.

Second, when I come on it’s in place of my mate Dan Lydiate – Lyds – which means I end up playing blindside with Martyn Williams at openside. Or rather, we play as twin opensides. Rather than having a six who’s a carrier and a seven who’s a scavenger, we both do a bit of each, and spell each other if need be. After a particularly draining period of play, Martyn asks me if I’ll jump on the openside for the next scrum just so he can catch his breath, and I’m happy to do so.

‘This is the way forward,’ Gethin Jenkins says afterwards. ‘Playing two opensides. Makes you as a team so quick to the breakdown.’

He’s right, of course. When it comes to rugby, Gethin usually is. He reads the game so well, and he isn’t afraid to speak his mind either; he’s the only player I’ve ever seen grab the waterboy’s mike and yell up to the coaches, ‘Get X off now, he’s playing shit!’ (X was playing shit, and the coaches did indeed pull him off.)

In years to come this is how I’ll play with Justin Tipuric for Wales and Sean O’Brien for the Lions; I might have 6 on my back, but I’ll still be playing as a 7. And those combinations will respectively yield two of the most memorable victories of my international career.

Sunday, 17 January 2010. The Six Nations is almost upon us, and I know this is it. Summer tours and autumn internationals can be experimental – a chance to try out new players and combinations, perhaps give the more senior and experienced players a rest – but the Six Nations is the real thing. Every country picks their best team. If I’m selected here, I’ll really start to feel that I belong in a Welsh shirt.