Dunn: It hurts me so much to lose
BATH warrior Tom Dunn concedes his chances of an England recall in time for the 2023 World Cup are slim despite his rich vein of form.
In the absence of other senior leaders like Ben Spencer and Charlie Ewels, Dunn has taken it upon himself to lead from the front and spearhead Bath’s revival under Johann van Graan.
The hooker won the last of his three caps against Ireland in the 2020 Autumn Nations Cup and has been overlooked in the most recent England training squads, with Jamie George, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Jamie Blamire the preferred options.
“I am the same age as Luke, I am a year younger than Jamie, and those boys are in-from so it is that third spot I am fighting for as such,” said the 30-yearold. “It would be a strange thing for the development of the game to have three hookers roughly the same age because we will all retire at the same time and then you’re left with no one.
“If you look at Jamie Blamire, Jack Singleton, Jack Walker … they are all three/four years younger than me and they fit the bill. I think personally they can do that third-choice role just as well so, to be honest with you, that (international rugby) has been and gone for me.
“I would never say no and I am massively proud of getting those three caps, I worked my socks off to get them, and if it came around again I would obviously take it with both hands. But, for me, I just really want to win something with Bath Rugby, that is out and out my goal.
“I don’t want to be one of those players commentating on TV in 10 years’ time and they put the capsimple
tion up and it says ‘200-odd games for Bath Rugby’, and that’s it. I’d rather it said, ‘100 games for Bath Rugby, Premiership title winner, 2022/23 or European title winner, 2023/24’. I don’t want to be that person who’s known for playing for Bath Rugby lots, I want to be known as someone who won something.”
Dunn, a turnover and tackling machine for Bath this season, has also weighed in with five Premiership tries – four more than he managed the whole of last season – and gives his heart and soul to the blue, black and white cause every time he sets foot on the pitch.
He wears the bruises and scars of battle like a badge of honour and none hurt more for him than when Bath were humiliated 64-0 at Gloucester last season en route to the club’s first-ever bottom-ofthe table Premiership finish. Dunn looked crest-fallen and visibly vented his frustrations in conversation with then director of rugby Stuart Hooper at the side of the Kingsholm pitch once Bath had finally been put out of their misery.
“For me, when we lose it doesn’t just hurt emotionally, it hurts physically. I don’t know why, I don’t know if there is a science
behind it or a chemical in the brain or something like that. But when you lose, it generally hurts more, you can’t train as much because you are physically sore.
“But when you are winning, you don’t hurt as much and you can train more. It is like a snowball effect – you keep going and you keep going and because you are training more, you get better and because you are getting better you’re winning more. It feeds off each other. That is a massive thing from this year.
“Also, when you win a couple, you get belief and that belief carries you through games that you maybe shouldn’t win. Take the last minute of the game against Leicester. I don’t think this time last year we would have pulled that game out of the bag.”
It took a while for van Graan, below, to “turn the tanker around” as Dunn puts it, but the Chippenham local feels the style of play under the South African is bringing the best out of him personally and the squad as a whole.
“The change in personnel is massive and the fresh outlook and the style of game has changed which suits me massively and I think it suits who we have in the team. “I feel like we are quite structured,
it is a very game plan – it is about being dominant with the collisions and having a great set-piece, which I think are my strengths.”
Bath have gone from having one of the least effective rolling mauls in the league to one of the best, and Dunn says there is no secret to the turnaround.
“As soon as you get a dangerous rolling maul, teams defend against you differently and that leaves space for other people to play.
“I think it comes down to what you practise and what you think is important. We now put more time into it. You can’t put all your time into everything in rugby. I am guessing here but I’d imagine if you go to Harlequins they put a lot of time into their first phase attack and if you go to Gloucester they put a lot of time on their maul.”
While the Bath scrum is still far from perfect, it is no longer the pushover it once was. “We have struggled this year with some key individuals being out which always makes a difference but we’re an aggressive scrum now,” Dunn said.
“Yes, we have won a lot of penalties and we have given a lot away but I would like to think that the ones we’ve given away, if you actually watch those scrums, it is not because we have been dominated, it is because we have lost a bind or we have gone through the mark or we have hit and chased.
“There is no such thing as a good penalty, but they are front-foot penalties, it is not like we’re thinking, ‘we are getting battered here, let’s cheat’, it is because we are trying to be aggressive. Sometimes you live and die by the sword.”
Win or lose, Dunn finds peace in knowing that he always gives his all and his team-mates regularly speak in awe at what he puts his body through.
But it’s all meat and drink to the player who owns “Black & White”, a hog roast outside event catering business.
“If you look around the room and you’ve lost but you’ve given everything, and you look at each other and you’re like ‘that was it lads, we went there, we did what we could, and that’s that’, you can almost find peace in that. Going home, my Mrs absolutely hates it, though. My (cauliflower) ears ruin bed sheets, pillow cases … the lot. She is not impressed!”