Abendanon fears game has become too physical
“It is quite daunting to have someone more than five stones heavier running straight at you”
Nick Abendanon’s baby son Cato is not yet five months old, but is unlikely to ever emulate his dad’s outstanding career. In fact, the odds are already against the lad playing rugby at all.
Clermont star Abendanon is sure, at any rate, that he will not be encouraging Cato to follow in his rapid footsteps.
He told The Rugby Paper: “If he insists in the years to come, then of course it will be up to him.
“But if the game keeps going the way it is with players getting bigger and stronger all the time, I will certainly not be trying to steer him towards rugby.
“I feel the game now is too physical for a lot of young players.”
Former Bath back Abendanon is well placed to make such a judgment against a backdrop of playing fatalities in France.
He has won silverware with his two clubs and is now in pursuit of more with Clermont about to host Northampton in the quarter-finals of the European Challenge Cup.
As well as heading unerringly towards another tilt at the Top 14 championship trophy he won with them in 2017.
But the glory and its rewards have come at such a cost he has already undergone three operations, two of them ruling him out for most of last season.
Abendanon, a relative lightweight at 13 stones, added: “I have to admit it is quite daunting to have someone more than five stones heavier running straight at you.
“You know he is going to be all over you. You just have to do your best.”
Abendanon is known for his courage in disputing high balls from full-back or launching runs deep into enemy territory.
Attributes, among others, which won him the European Player of the Year title in his first season with Clermont.
He was barely known at that level when, at just 21, he touched down a try that helped Bath win the European Challenge Cup final against Worcester in his first full campaign there.
The manner of its scoring gave him a foretaste of a career in which pain and pleasure have their place.
Abendanon says: “It was a big moment, a dream come true, but I do not remember much of what happened.
“I had taken a knock to the head and hardly knew where I was. I wasn’t too aware of what I was doing.
“If the match had been played in this era, I would have been off the field at the time.”
Abendanon was a young man surrounded by internationals, like locks Steve Borthwick, the captain, and Danny Grewcock, prop David Flatman, winger Matt Banahan and scrum-half Michael Claassens.
Coached by Aussie Steve Meehan who cited him in a farewell interview as having symbolised his team’s “audacity”.
That flair was dimmed only by a surgeon’s scalpel last April to repair a damaged shoulder and, six months of inactivity later, by another operation at the top of his spine.
“I should have had a scan on that part of my body earlier, but it was put back because of my shoulder.
“It was tough mentally to learn I would be out for another three months just when I thought I was about to come back.
“I am keeping my fingers crossed that is all behing me. I have received messages of support from fans, which has really helped me...2018 was a year to forget.”
For the moment, Abendanon is Clermont’s only specialist full-back with Kiwi Isaia Toeava and Fijian Setariki Tuicuvu both injured.
The most immediate job is to reclaim the leadership of the Top 14 they lost to Toulouse recently, starting with a home match against Bordeaux-Begles next Saturday.
And on the horizon lies the European Challenge Cup, a competition whose last eight include powerful outfits like La Rochelle, Harlequins and Sale.
Abendanon said: “A lot of the lads started off by not taking it too seriously because we were used to playing in the Champions Cup.
“But everyone is set on trying to win it now. We certainly have the depth of squad to compete for two tro- phies at the same time.”
That altered mindset has come from a group stage in which Clermont won six bonus-enhanced victories, thereby matching a record previously held alone by Ospreys.
The encounter with Northampton – the third after beating them twice in the tournament already – takes place on March 31.
And that is when Abendanon feels he will be back to his best, explaining: “After what has happened to me, I am going to need that time. I have had doubts, of course, over whether I would get back to the same form, but I am thinking positively.”
He is under contract until the end of next season with a one-year option he hopes to take up.
Abendanon will be going on 35 at the end of all that, no doubt hanging up his boots and teaching junior to play something else.