Tait escapes the school of hard knocks
Henson hit set tone for a challenging career
THE image of an 18-year-old Mathew Tait being picked up and ignominiously shunted into reverse by Gavin Henson on his England debut in Cardiff went into Welsh rugby folklore.
Fourteen years on, Tait has his own jaundiced view.
“I’m sick of that ******* picture,” he says. Hardly surprising, as it has come to represent a career unfulfilled, one that ended a fortnight ago when Tait retired because of an Achilles injury.
Being dropped from a great height, as Tait was that day, and then metaphorically for the next game by England coach Andy Robinson, hardly seems a fair epitaph to a professional odyssey which brought 38 caps and a Premiership title with Leicester, as well as a Commonwealth Games sevens silver medal. But, as the comically sanguine Tait might say, since when is life fair?
“Andy’s job was to put out a team that was going to deliver a victory, so in dropping me for the following week against France, when the team ended up winning, in a sense he was justified,” says Tait, above.
“Do I think he could have handled the situation better? Probably. I’m sure he would say the same. Would that happen now? Probably not, but you just have to crack on. “Philosophically, if that day had gone better, I might not have been able to experience the Hong Kong Sevens, the Commonwealth Games, and some of the highs of my career.” Tait’s return to the England ranks saw him play in the 2007 World Cup final at the age of 21. Yet with his talent, which was summed up in a bewitching break against South Africa that came within Mark Cueto’s stud length of winning that final, it is hard not to conclude Tait underachieved as an international. Sitting in the clubhouse at Oadby Town FC, opposite Leicester’s training ground, Tait, 33, chews this over. “Possibly,” he says. “Anyone that plays is ambitious and whether I would have retired now or when I was 35 there would still have been things I would want to have achieved. It is a bit bizarre having 38 caps by the age of 24 and none since. “It is frustrating but in sport there are elements of luck and timing. I had some bad injuries and I just wasn’t playing well enough.You have to take some responsibility for that yourself. “Other guys emerged who were playing better than me.” And who were bigger than him.Tait fell victim, at least in part, to a fashion for powerful centres. Converted instead into a utility back, he ended up playing in every backline position except scrum-half for his country, before full-back became his Leicester niche.
“The game goes through cycles. It was big centres for a while then it was your Elliot Dalys and your Jonathan Josephs – your more dancing centres – and now it’s a bludgeoner and a ball player,” Tait says.
“When I made my debut for Newcastle I was 79kg, which just seems ridiculous. I put on about nine kilos in not a huge amount of time leading up to that Wales debut then lost it all again on the Sevens circuit.
“I was hoping the weight was going to come off now I’ve finished, but I’ve recently found cheese and gin.”
Bulked-up bodies and more collisions lead to more collateral damage. Tait would love to see his two boys run out at
Welford
Road one day but is hesitant to push them towards rugby.
“The young guys coming through now accept that if they have a
10-year career, 20 or 25 per cent of that is probably going to be spent injured,” he says.
“Rugby has given me everything but would I want my kids to play? I don’t know.
If they wanted to, for sure, but I wouldn’t push them into it. I’d want them to explore other sports as well.”
Tait leaves a game that is at a crossroads, trying to balance player welfare and commercial avarice.
“Rugby is in an interesting space,” he says. “It seems to have no money and is desperately trying to commercialise itself out of necessity rather than with a plan. I find that side of both the Premiership and the global game really interesting.”
The English clubs’ sale to a private equity firm is a response to their own
over-spending. Would the simpler solution not have been to pay the players less?
“Pandora’s box has already been opened,” says Tait.
It is not his problem now, although it may be one day. Tait is about to complete a sports directorship Masters degree at Salford University with an eye on the boardroom. For the moment, retirement brings with it the dream of reactivating his pilot’s licence as well as the more grounded reality of being father to a young family and plotting a new route in life. “I’ve taken the well-trodden path of the ex-rugby player and bought myself a road bike. No doubt I’ll end up doing some form of bloody yoga,” says Tait.
“Whatever I do, it’s going to be different. It’s changing from an almost institutionalised habit I’ve been used to for the last however many years.
“I’m like a prisoner released. What was his name, in Shawshank Redemption? Brooks?
“Actually, he hung himself, so I hope I’m not that far gone. Come and ask me in six months.”
I’m feeling like a released prisoner