FAREWELL BIG EARS!
Tributes to Toby Flood as he retires at Newcastle Falcons
Toby Flood was a skinny teenager when he was elevated from the Newcastle Falcons academy to the senior team in 2004 but the older blokes in the first team know he had something.
Seventeen years later, with, 60 England caps and 301 international points, a World Cup final, three Premiership wins at Leicester and a stint at Toulouse followed by a return to Kingston, he has proved it.
Fly-half Flood announced his retirement from professional rugby last week to combine a business degree at Cambridge University with joining the coaching team at Kingston Park headed up by Dean Richards. Flood would have been unavailable for one weekend a month, if he had carried on playing, because of study commitments, now he will get a taste of life on the other side of the whitewash.
It has been a long road for the youngster, now a 36-yearold, who was the butt of a few jokes when he entered the big boys’ dressing room.
Tom May, the former Newcastle back who made his club debut in 1999, recalled: “The amount of stick he used to get as a kid was quite funny. He has the most incredible set of ears which didn’t go unnoticed. There are a lot of things about Floody, clearly his eyebrows, but he is top fella and he dealt with it really well.
“First impressions were ‘this guy is a decent footballer but he is skin and bone’. You could see he had a good brain on him, he was confident in his own ability, which you have to be to make it in professional sport, and he learned so quickly off everyone there.
“Like most people from the north east he had a natural ability to kick a ball, his ball skills were pretty well developed for someone of that age and he could read a game. If you combine those three, you have got a pretty good head start on your peers.
“He was similar to Wilko (Jonny Wilkinson) in his work ethic, especially around kicking – when you have got that mindset combined with ability to pick up skills you are in with a pretty good shout of going a long way, which he did.”
Having Wilkinson about helped in two ways. Wilkinson was the ultimate professional who inspired those around him, but during the period from winning the World Cup in 2003 with England up to around 2007 he could not string together many games because of injuries.
That opened the door for Flood, and Dave Walder, to step up at Newcastle and Flood more than did his part which eventually saw him win his first cap for England, against Argentina, in 2006.
Apart from Wilkinson, who came back for England in 2007, there were some decent fly-halves around, not least Charlie Hodgson – who also had his share of injuries – Olly Barkley, Andy Goode, Shane Geraghty and Danny Cipriani. Flood, in fact, won most of his early caps as a centre.
“Jonny was injured that much,” adds May. “Maybe at times when someone as young as Toby comes into a team it is a bit like ‘we are not quite sure how this could go’. Other teams looked at him and thought ‘he is quite a slim bloke, let’s get after him’.
“But he is tough, he was not going to shirk away from anything and he gets stuck in. Sometimes with lads when they are given opportunities at Newcastle because of the injuries, it was not just for one week, you got the opportunity to have a run of games. He did well when he stepped in at a young age and that gave him confidence to kick on.”
Another form team mate, centre Jamie Noon, says: “He was a worker. It was a credit to him that when Wilko was back they had to find a position for him so he was still on the field. He was good for me because he was a ball player and he opened the doors and that was something I was very aware of. He was a real good communicator and knew the way the games were going.”
In 2007 Flood was called up to the England World Cup squad, when Noon was injured, doing himself the favour of missing the 36-0 pool stage annihilation by South Africa, but coming off the bench in the 15-6 defeat to the Boks in the final.
In 2008 he moved to Leicester
and by 2009 May had left Falcons for stints at Toulon, Northampton and London Welsh. That was when May truly appreciated what he had been playing with at Newcastle.
May explains: “A couple of times when I played against him, you started to realise this guy could put a ball where he wants. When I played a couple of games against him I started to realise what an asset he was for a team. Anyone who has played an extended period of time in that ball-playing role has a lot to give. He has got a huge amount to offer in coaching if that is the route he wants to take.”
As Flood said in the week: “It was alright – I think it went okay!” You can say that again Toby.