Why Wales captain’s life changed after he became a father
Alun Wyn Jones tells Kate Rowan how having children has changed his outlook on life and rugby
Alun Wyn Jones is used to doing the dirty work in the second row, so changing nappies does not particularly seem to faze the Wales captain. Jones will become the most capped Welshman of all time if he plays this weekend against England at Twickenham, once Lions Tests are taken into account, and there is without doubt a touch of the old school about him in his approach to his work on the field. But there is another side, too, one he showed when taking to Instagram after his first daughter, Mali, was born four years ago to model his “new scrum cap” – a nappy.
Being the wily player he is, there was a method to his madness. “Have you ever tried to change a nappy when there is poo everywhere?” he guffaws. “That is
the moment I was in there. You have to get the distraction level up. I was trying to keep her distracted to get the nappy off and the other one on, that is purely what it was. It was one of those moments where I thought, ‘Screw it, I am going to share it’.”
The 33-yearold is likely to captain Wales at the World Cup in
Japan, having led Warren Gatland’s men to Grand
Slam glory this year. It would seem that Mali and one-yearold Efa could be the secret to his success as captain, as he reveals becoming a father has made him more empathetic and curious about his team-mates’ lives outside rugby.
“When I was a young professional, I was quite selfish and self-focused.
You care for yourself because you ultimately want to achieve your goals,” he admits.
“When you get a bit of age and experience, your vision broadens and then even more when kids come along, everything completely changes. When Mali came along it was more than a shock to the system, it was a sobering dose of reality to realise that I have responsibility that is greater than myself.
“Becoming a father has made me more aware in rugby and made me realise that everyone is a son, uncle, dad or brother. It has made me think about how everyone experiences bereavement, birth, good times and bad times. Everybody has a story, if you scratch the surface a little bit; it helps you understand why somebody might not be performing well. It is nice then to find out when someone has some positive news.
“Having children has definitely made me want to find out more about the people I play with, and it has made me think a bit more about my team-mates as people and their families. I want people to know about my family and it is good to share any questions or qualms with the other guys.”
Jones is relentlessly self-critical, whether it is his performances on the field or his conduct off it. He makes a point of admonishing himself whenever he misses birthdays or his children’s firsts, and while he gives much of the credit for his happy home life to his wife Anwen – who is taking a break from her job as a lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, where she teaches physiology and health – he is a determinedly progressive thinker.
“There are a lot more Barbie dolls and pink about the place, but real men wear pink, so that’s OK,” he laughs.
That said, he is not one to buy into the concept of modern masculinity. “I don’t think you need to talk about modern masculinity in inverted commas. People have been having babies for thousands of years,” he says.
“There are a lot of guys in the squad with children of similar ages, so there are a lot of things to talk about. Being a parent in a team sport, you do have that forum where you do talk about first days of school, measles and chickenpox. Those are the simplistic parenting conversations that are had. It is easy to make child care and parenting complex.”
Jones can draw comparisons between parenting and the rugby dressing room – notably his daughter Mali’s “no-holds-barred” conversations about her bathroom habits via Facetime when he is on tour with Wales – but he sees no correlation between the anxiety an expectant father feels compared with a rugby player awaiting news of whether he has made a World Cup squad. Warren Gatland names his on Sept 2.
“There is no comparison,” he says. “Let’s be honest, if something goes wrong during a pregnancy, there are a couple of lives at risk. Rugby is dangerous sometimes, but life is more precious than we like to think sometimes and rugby is just a game.
“Whereas bringing a life into the world and looking after my wife is far more important.”
This perspective seems to have
given his leadership skills a lift, but again Jones swaps any psychobabble for a common-sense approach as he describes the coffees he is likely to share with team-mates while in Japan and the sort of support system players will create for each other.
“Sometimes the biggest support is that you can talk, everybody is going through the same things, but at different times, it could be a missed wedding anniversary, anything – it is not rocket science, it is just a case of talking about it,” he says.
He brings this same approach into how his daughters have also transformed his performance for the better. “I don’t know if becoming a father has made me a better player, but it has given me a greater appreciation for what I do,” he says.
“Hopefully, it has made me perform better, which is a different thing to being a better player – having that responsibility makes rugby the outlet, so I get the opportunity to really express myself at rugby.
“Mali and Efa have enabled me to focus on something else.”