Meet Beno Obano – film maker, Bath centurion and England prop
hafter releasing his debut documentary and finally gaining an international cap, European silverware is the next target
Games with no supporters are bad enough, but to have two landmark matches in your career go by without anyone in the stands feels extremely unlucky. “First England cap with no fans, 100th Bath game with no fans – I’m used to it now,” laughs Beno Obano, after bringing up his Bath century last weekend against Zebre.
Obano’s on-field stock has never been higher, yet his work away from it in recent months has commanded attention. Obano, 26, released the documentary Everybody’s Game through Amazon Prime last November, a project featuring England team-mates Maro Itoje, Anthony Watson and Ellis Genge.
The crux of Everybody’s Game was to highlight how many more people can benefit from what rugby has to offer, if the game can crack through into the areas of society where there remains an abundance of unfulfilled sporting talent.
Biyi Alo, the Wasps prop, was a late addition to the documentary, but delivered one of its core messages. “Rugby can be that vehicle to change a lot of people’s lives, and not enough people are exposed to it. There are plenty more people who may be more athletic and more gifted than me who just are not exposed to the sport.”
Reflecting on the project now, Obano says: “It wasn’t a race documentary or a class documentary. The whole goal of it was for people to watch it and they might tell one other person [about rugby], and that next person might then pay more attention when the Six Nations is on, and then as they watch the Six Nations that person might invite their friends round to watch it.
“I feel like I’ve done that from the messages I’ve got, but I really won’t know. It’s gone into schools as well now, as a teaching aid of some sort, and I was just happy that everyone sort of got it. Once you watched it, you got it.”
The fact that Obano wanted to produce and direct the documentary, so his message could come across as purely as possible and not be altered in the edit, feels telling, even if he did have to learn on the hoof, putting the production together through “trial and error”.
As much as there is to discuss about Obano’s documentary, his efforts on the field deserve high praise. After multiple call-ups for training camps he was finally handed a first England Test cap in this Six Nations, coming off the bench against Scotland, with more to follow this summer, you imagine.
“I felt a lot of weight dropped off my shoulders, I won’t lie. A lot of relief. You have been working for something for so long, it’s all you can think about every single day. It was a case of OK, thank God, now I can properly get into my England career.”
Not bad for a player who turned up at Bath on trial for an A league game and managed only 18 minutes. Obano’s rugby career really began going into his final year at Dulwich College, where he thrived on a tour of South Africa before being snapped up by Wasps’ academy. Injury led to his release and subsequent arrival at Bath on trial, when, according to club captain Charlie Ewels, Obano was “the size of a bus”. The phenomenal hard work that went into his subsequent physical transformation sums up his drive as both a player and a person. “The way he put his head down and worked, straight away everyone sat up and thought ‘fair enough,” Ewels says.
“Look at him now, he’s one of the most powerful athletes in the game. Off the field, he’s so well-rounded, he’s always got a smile and a different idea, and on the pitch now, just a fierce competitor.
“It’s great to see him get his 100th game for Bath and his first cap for England, all duly deserved and all off the back of very hard work.” Obano, naturally, remembers that trial game well. “When I played my first A league game for Bath, no one thought this guy was going to go on to represent England and play 100 games for Bath. I thought I might, but no one else!” he says. “If I’m honest, I’m pretty proud of playing 100 games for Bath.”
Capping off a season of personal milestones by winning the Challenge Cup would make for a fitting conclusion, with Bath standing as good a chance as most of the sides left ahead of facing London Irish in the quarter-final this evening.
“By your mid-twenties, you’re trying to find that good feeling, all the time,” Obano says. “That’s what winning a trophy does, it becomes your thing to be happy, searching for that feeling again and again.”
Eventually, you sense Obano will get there.
‘Off the field, he’s always got a smile and a different idea. On it, he’s just a fierce competitor’