‘I knew something had happened to me. That was the moment the seed was sown...’
Barnstorming back-rower Emyr Lewis played 41 times for Wales and enjoyed triumphs for both club and country. Rugby correspondent Simon Thomas catches up with the legend who was rescued from bitterness by an extraordinary experience...
WHEN he reflects on his life, Emyr Lewis feels blessed in more ways than one.
He’s hugely thankful for his rugby career, which brought him 41 Wales caps and memorable triumphs with both club and country.
But he also feels blessed by the faith which has helped him get over some of the lows of his playing days and the challenges presented by life after rugby.
Having become a Christian a decade or so ago, the man known throughout the game as Tarw the Bull has found a new contentment and happiness.
It’s allowed him to lay to rest the bitterness he felt over the way his time with Llanelli and Wales ended and come through a difficult transition into a post-playing life.
When he spoke to me from his farmhouse near Bridgend, it wasn’t the story I had expected to hear, but it proved to be one of the most honest and open testimonies I have come across while doing these interviews.
Perhaps the best place to begin is at the end – to be precise, the end of his playing career in 2003.
“People ask, ‘Why do some rugby players have mental health issues after they finish playing?’,” says the former back-rower.
“Well, it’s simple really. It’s because you are training and socialising day in, day out, and then all of a sudden someone just pulls the rug from under your feet and you are gone. You are not there any more.
“Your life has changed dramatically overnight. You have got to start from scratch, you have got to find a job. It’s surprising how quick you are forgotten, really.
“I did find it hard to come to terms with my rugby career ending. It was definitely difficult. It’s a tough period of time for about three or four years, just trying to adapt to everything.”
The moment when it all changed came totally unexpectedly when he was just going about his business in photocopier sales.
“I was in Cardiff in the office and I had a phone call out of the blue,” he recalls. “I shouldn’t have been there and I never pick the phone up because it’s never for me.
“Anyway, I picked it up, spoke to this lady and she said they were looking for a photocopier. Well that never happens. Nobody phones up looking for one, everything is cold-calling.
“But she said they needed one urgently, so I make my way down there to west Wales on this horrible November evening.
“When I got there, she explained it was a Christian retreat and said, ‘If you go online, you will read a lot of miracles have happened here’.
“I thought, ‘Oh crikey, here we go’. She showed me around and the last place she took me was the church and she just turned to me and said, ‘Do you mind if I bless you now?’.
“I was thinking, ‘Okay, anything for a sale’.
“So she blessed me and something went straight through me. I had to sit down. She said, ‘Are you all right?’ with this smile on her face and she goes, ‘We will see you again’.
“I came out, I drove up the lane and for some reason I felt this compulsion to turn around.
“When I did, the only thing I could see was the sun coming through the clouds and the rays of the sun highlighting the cross of the church.
“I went cold. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was surreal. I knew something had happened to me. That was the moment the seed was sown.
“Things just started changing after that and six months later I was a Christian.”
What also played a key part was Lewis’ friendship with his former Wales team-mate Garin Jenkins.
“Garin introduced me to the Bible and God and from there on in my life changed and became so much better,” he said. “I went to church with him in Porth in the Rhondda and when I was there things started moving. I opened my heart up more and I could see things differently.
“It must have been the hardest church on Earth because Garin was there, Chris Jones was there, his brother Clive was there and Phil Davies, the former Treorchy player, was there. You think, ‘Crikey, I wouldn’t like to mess with this church!’.
“I know it sounds really dramatic, but when I walked in there for the first time, as soon as I put my foot over the threshold, the lights went out, there was a power cut. It was just a lovely place. Everyone was so relaxed and I just felt so at home.
“I have always believed in God. It’s just in the past I think I used it more as a safety net, whereas now it’s full-on.
“My faith has definitely helped me make that transition out of being a rugby player. As I say, the first two or three years were difficult, there is no disputing that.
“There were certain things that had left a bitter taste in my mouth, the way in which I was let go by Llanelli and the way I was treated by Wales.
“I fractured the base of my spine on the 1996 tour of Australia and I was just forgotten about by Wales after that.
“I was bitter at the time, but faith has helped me overcome the bitterness.
“Once I committed myself to Christianity, things became a lot easier. I am very fortunate that I have found God. It has been a very, very important part of my life. My life is so much better because of it.
“The huge support I have received from my wife over the years has been a massive factor as well.
“I am happy, I am contented. It’s really good.”
So if that’s the ending, what was the beginning? How, for starters, did he come to be known as Tarw? It’s a story that goes back a long way.
“That came from primary school,” explains the Carmarthen product.
“I was only about seven or eight. They used to play murder-ball in school in those days and I was just walking along the path and somehow or other I ended up having the ball in my hands.
“I could see all these big guys running at me, so I just ran straight at them. For some reason, someone started calling me Tarw and it stuck.”
But the bull wasn’t to be unleashed on a rugby field for a good while yet. For much of his childhood, football was his sport and he only really took up the oval ball when he was about 16 after a rapid growth spurt.
“I was quite small until the age of 15. I’ve got class photos where I was in the front row, but then, the following year, I’m in the back row, about three inches taller than anyone else.
“I must have grown four or five inches in a matter of months. I had issues with it. Because I grew so quick, the bones grew and the muscles couldn’t catch up.
“So I missed school for about three