Tulip in full bloom... Davies on nicknames, a tonking from Tonga and lessons from Grav
RUGBY has been a way of life for Phil Davies for some 40 years now.
Spending all his playing career with his beloved Llanelli, he won the Welsh Cup five times, skippering the club for a number of seasons.
He earned 46 caps for Wales in the back five of the scrum, sharing in the Five Nations title triumph of 1994.
As a coach, he’s had spells with the Scarlets, Cardiff Blues, Worcester, Wales U20s and Namibia, while he is now back at Leeds for a second stint.
He has some great stories to tell and he sat down with SIMON THOMAS to share them.
First of all, where does the nickname Tulip come from?
That’s quite straightforward.
My dad worked in wholesale fruit and veg and flowers for 60 years.
When the flower season came in, I would always be talking about the flowers my old man had. I was always rabbiting on about tulips, don’t ask me why!
So my best mate two doors just called me tulip. He came up with that and it stuck.
Who was the best player you played with?
Jonathan (Davies) is the obvious one, isn’t he?
He was absolutely brilliant. Talented, a cheeky bugger. We have ended up being family for the last 34 years.
He had great temperament, great skill level and he wasn’t afraid of anything.
I remember the first Welsh Cup final we played together for Llanelli in 1988. He had joined from Neath the year before...and it was against Neath.
Back in the day, we used to have cards in the dressing room before a big game, from your home club or your schoolteacher, wishing you well.
Well, before that game, there was a massive card on the table addressed to Jonathan.
When he opened it up, it was a card off the Neath forwards.
It was a picture of a guy in a red rugby kit hanging from a noose!
All the Neath forwards had signed it and said: ‘Look forward to seeing you on the field, Jiff.’
Anyway, the consequence was we won 28-13 he had Man of the Match. His kicking and his general all-round play were superb. So he not only had the skill, he had the temperament as well.
The other player at club level was Gary Jones, Boomer. He would always play eight of ten every week.
He was Mr Consistent, always had a good game. He was a tough bugger. So you had Jonathan who was world class and then Boomer who was a really top class club player. Who was your toughest opponent as a player?
I loved playing against The Chief. He was a real handful as a No 8.
He always had a bit to say, in words of one syllable normally!
I love Dale to bits. He is a great guy. I have always respected and liked him and it’s been good to get to know him a bit more over the years, working with him on the coaching front, at the Blues and with Namibia. Having him come to the World Cup with us last year was a joy. He’s a good guy. I used to love playing against the two Moriarty brothers, Paul and Richard. They used to gang up on me. They were good players and good friends of mine as well.
There was always a physical confrontation both ways and I used to enjoy that.
In international rugby, Dean Richards was great to play against, Laurent Rodriguez was another one. He was big fun. He always used to give a bit of lip, but I could never understand what he was saying!
Gary Whetton was a tough bugger to play against, really hard and a good footballer. Him and Buck Shelford together for the All Blacks were a handful!
Who was the best coach you played under?
Gareth Jenkins was the biggest influence on me in terms of his motivation. His understanding how to peak for big games was brilliant.
Him and Allan Lewis together were a pretty special coaching partnership at Llanelli.
I always thought they were like a Brian Clough-Peter Taylor type of thing. They were really good.
What was your favourite game as a player?
Beating France in Cardiff in 1994. That was a hell of a game.
It was a brilliant Championship that year. I will never forget the crowd for the home matches.
We absolutely annihilated Scotland first up. We were a bit robust at the start of that one!
It was a wet old day and I always remember Mikey Rayer sliding over with his hand in the air. It was bloody brilliant.
Then the next home game was France, who were the title holders.
Alan Davies was coach at the time. He was a good planner and would come up with different things.
Before that game, we changed to wearing green socks for the first time in a while.
Scott Quinnell asked him ‘Why are we wearing green socks then, coach?”
Alan replied: “Well, we have got to know who we are stamping on in the rucks.”
Anyway, it paid off because that was the only way the linesman could tell Scott hadn’t stepped into touch for his amazing try.
What I really remember though is Nigel Walker’s try late on.
I was getting up off the floor from a ruck. The ball was given to Nigel, so I thought I’d better get after him to try and support him. But after two metres I thought ‘There’s no point’. He was too quick for me by far.
I will never forget, standing on the halfway line in the old national stadium as he went over. It looked as though everybody in the stand was throwing something up in the air.
The noise was just absolutely incredible. Sometimes when you play, you don’t always take as much note of that. But that really sticks in my mind.
I played nine Tests against France and this was the only time we beat them. It was an unbelievable experience. The atmosphere was incredible.
There were so many unique moments in that match. We took a scrum against the head, which was unheard of in thise days against France.
It was an amazing game and a hell of a Championship.
If you had to tie me down to one game in my career, it would be that French one.
What was the dirtiest game you played in?
The most violent game of rugby I ever played in was Tonga, 1986, out there.
Oh my word alive.
You remember Naked Gun 2.5, with the ambulance and that blue light at the beginning? That was that game!
There were so many players in hospital and I think Dr Harold Richards put about 50 odd stitches in the team after the game. It might have been Adrian Hadley who had the most, but everyone was having one or two or four or five, that type of thing.
We had gone to Fiji for the first game on that tour and they all said ‘Wait until you go to Tonga’. We soon found out what they meant.
The game was played at the Nuku A’lofa national stadium. Loose term, of course, national stadium!
It was just a bonkers situation. An Aussie called Brian Kinsey was refereeing. He was a lovely guy, but he had the minister on one touchline and the local headmaster on the other, so he was in the niddle on his own. The linesmen weren’t flagging for anything. It was a free-for-all.
If you turned your back, you had to be careful because there were a lot of cheap shots.
It was punches, boots on the floor, you name it, elbows, the lot.
They had a prop called Tevita Bloomfield, who must have been the
heavyweight champion of Tonga the amount of punches he threw that day.
There were 30 man brawls every ten minutes. It was ridiculous. That was violent.
Derek Quinnell walked on the field at one stage with his trousers tucked into his socks trying to get us off.
That was the dirtiest game I ever played in.
What was your favourite ground to play on?
Club-wise, it was Stradey.
Even when I see photos of it now, it gives me goosebumps and I get emotional, just because of what Llanelli stood for there.
It was just an amazing ground. The atmosphere and the anticipation for big games, the history, you could feel it all. I still get goosebumps talking about it now!
Away from Wales, it was the Parc des Princes. That was an incredible place to play.
When the teams lined up, the French would always show the ref one pair of boots and then put on 12 inch studs after that!
I remember going ‘I didn’t think he was that tall that bloke’. I was trying to work out how Eric Champ had grown six inches in a matter of minutes.
You would stand in the tunnel and there were these massive glass doors.
So you could see everything, with the cockerels running on the pitch.
But when they opened the doors, the noise would just take your breath away. It was an amazing place to play rugby and we played against arguably some of the great French sides of the modern era.
You had your jaw broken by Wade Dooley in the 1987 Wales-England game. What do you remember of that?
What I remember is I was only on for a minute and a half!
It was one of those games where there was a lot of tension with the way it was reported in the build up. There was a lot of animosity in the air.
Even the day of the game, it was like a really eerie feeling. It was strange.
It was terrible weather and you sensed that something was going to happen. And it did!
Never has the word duck been more appropriate in a situation. If someone had said duck, it would have saved a lot of pain. But nobody did!
For a minute, I didn’t realise the damage the punch had done.
I thought ‘Oof, that was a good one. Flipping heck, well done, fair play to you Wade.’
He did clock me one, but I got back up quite quickly.
I was fired up a bit then, as you can imagine.
The referee, Ray Megson, asked me: ‘Are you all right, Phil?’
I said: ‘Well, would you be all right if that big f ***** had clocked you one?’
Anyway, I said ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m all right.’
Then I blew my left nostril, fine, and I blew my right nostril and the right side of my face came up like a balloon. I think it was Dean Richards who goes: ‘Phil, have you seen your face?’
I thought well no, obviously not!
Anyway, Tudor Jones, our physio, comes on and goes: “Jesus Christ, you’d better come off.”
I tried to get back on the field, but Derek Quinnell tackled me and wouldn’t let me on.
I went and watched the game with the nurses in the Cardiff Royal Infirmary in the end.
Old Wade copped a bit of stick after that. He rang the house in Trimsaran to apologise on the Sunday morning and my father-in-law Ken gave him both barrels.
But it was one of those things. Back in those days, the game was different to what it is now. It was physical. The rucks made it interesting!
Someone told me there were something like 40 odd cameras covering the World Cup games in Japan. You wouldn’t have had that back in the day.
I hadn’t seen Wade for donkey’s years and then I was coaching Wales U20s against Ireland in Athlone and there he was. We gave each other a big hug and I said: ‘What are you doing here?’
That’s when he said he was the citing commissioner! You can imagine what I said then.
If anybody knows foul play, it will be you, I said.
Who is the biggest character you have encountered in the game?
That would be Grav, without a doubt.
I played with him in the early years of my career and that was an incredible honour and a privilege.
I remember when we played Swansea, he used to run in their dressing room, shout at Dai Richards and then run out. You are thinking ‘What is he doing, this bloke, what is he on?’ He was amazing to play with, a tough bloke, but also very caring.
When I first went to Stradey he would say ‘Sit by me, run out behind me’.
He taught us a lot in terms of the history and what it meant to be a Scarlet and how you behave and treat new people coming into the club.
He was brilliant for me as a player and later as a coach. His enthusiasm was infectious and he was very supportive and very giving. He was just a lovely bloke, a wonderful person. When he was in hospital after losing his leg, we bought him quite a nice watch from the Scarlets squad because we knew he liked watches. That broke him that did. He was crying for about 20 minutes.
I will never forget, he got so excited and emotional, he got out of his wheelchair. But he forgot he didn’t have his artificial leg on and fell over and we had to catch him! He was just such a great character.
When he passed away, we were all devastated. He was an incredible human being.
Do you have any Mark Perego stories?
We used to train together quite a bit and go down the country park.
I would drive to his mothers and we’d put these army boots on and off we’d go. Whatever the weather, we’d be there in shorts, socks, T-shirt, army boots, with him carrying his axe.
Then off we would run into the woods. We did some crazy training. We used to put logs on our backs and run up hills. It was great fun.
The trees had been felled and we would cut them, just like in the old ‘Rocky’ film I suppose. He was into all that Mark, he absolutely loved it.
Anyway, this one day, he had bought a new axe. After he’d had a go, he said ‘Your turn’. The long and the short of it is I broke the axe.
Well, well, you could swear I had committed murder. He was tamping. I had to go and buy him a new one! Mark was a character but a great player as well. He was ahead of his time in his professionalism and his tackling. If he had consistently played rugby, he would have been rated as one of the best ever.
You have been a coach for close on 25 years. Who is the best player you have coached in all that time?
Regan King, without a doubt.
I would have paid to watch him train. He was just so skilful, he understood time and space and created so much opportunity for others around him because he saw the game two or three frames ahead.
Gethin Jenkins would be the best forward I coached. He just had an incredible rugby brain and so much understanding of the game. They were both really special players.
Then you had Warby and Halfpenny, who were so diligent, professional and respectful.
What’s the biggest rollicking you have delivered as a coach?
It was when I was in charge at Leeds first time around. We were playing Gats’ Wasps at Adams Park around 2002.
We came in half time and we were 22-5 down. We had not fired a shot.
I went beserk in the dressing room. I was shouting and bawling, about this that and the other. I wasn’t making a lot of sense.
Back then, if we had any games where we were out-enthused, we would be in the next day doing 50 100 metres on the pitch. It had some good effect over time
As we were coming out for the second half that day, one of the boys said ‘We are not doing those f ****** 50 100s, so we’d better pull our fingers out.’
I had a wry smile on my face at that.
Anyway, we absolutely dominated the second half. drew the game 27-27.
That was a pretty hefty rollicking, but it got the desired effect.
What’s been the proudest moment of your coaching career?
The European campaign with Llanelli, in 2006-07, when we got to the semi-final, was incredible for us. We played some amazing football that year.
The two games against Toulouse stand out because they were the team back then.
Then, when I was at Cardiff Blues, beating Toulon at the Arms Park was a proud moment. We were operating on a budget of about £3m and had a very young team.
The Leeds journey, going from Division Four into the Premiership and winning the Powergen Cup at Twickenham was amazing.
And taking Namibia to the World Cup and being competitive and gaining respect was fantastic too.
I enjoy trying to make a difference. What has given me the greatest satisfaction over the years is seeing the joy on people’s faces when you get success.
I have coached every year since 1996 and I absolutely love it.
The trees had been felled and we would cut them up... just like in the old ‘Rocky’ film
Phil Davies on training with Mark Perego