‘I WOULD BE BUCKLED OVER A TRYING TO PUT MY OWN KNEE Six Nations winner Andrew Coombs reveals his knee injury torment
W
HEN he walks into the e hallway of his home in n Quakers Yard, Andrew w Coombs now has a wel- come reminder of the high point of his s rugby career.
There, on the wall, is a newly- mounted display featuring his Wales s cap, jersey and winners’ medal from m the 2013 Six Nations title campaign.
It’s a pleasant counterpoint to the other daily reminder of his rugby life – the constant pain in his left knee.
Such contrast is emblematic of Coombs’ playing days, which were re very much a tale of ups and downs, high and lows. There was the rejection he suffered at club and regional level, the emotion of his Wales debut, the title triumph and then the calamitous injury which ended it all, leaving him feeling g badly let down.
When I speak to Coombs, I find a considered, reflective man who is s making a real success of life today y through the family construction n company, while also enjoying his s media work as a pundit.
Yet, to use his own words, he’s ’ “taunted” by his knee, on which he has had 10 operations. That’s the he unwanted legacy of a sport which h was a way of life for him from a very ry early age.
“My dad played second row for the th local club, Nelson RFC, so I kind of followed him, being a ball boy from as young as I can remember really,” he says. But it wasn’t to be a straightforward rugby route for Coombs.
After spells with Nelson, Ebbw Vale, Newport and Pontypool, he was handed a development contract by the Dragons, only to be let go after two years, having been plagued by shoulder injuries, including a double dislocation which left him “like a T-Rex”.
“To be honest, I faced rejection all my b****y life in my rugby career,” he reflects. “I faced rejection at Ebbw Vale where I was told I wasn’t ready for senior rugby. I played two years for Newport Youth and got told again I wasn’t up to standard.
“Then, at the Dragons, they said because of my injuries and lack of opportunities they had to let me go for financial reasons. I was 21 and I had just lost my mother a couple of months before that, so it was a tough time.
“Losing her the way I did and then getting called in and released is a period of time I’ll remember forever. It’s probably the lowest I have been. But things like that make you stronger.”
Signing up with Newport, his chance finally came in March 2010, when a back row injury crisis saw the Newport skipper called up for his Dragons debut as a replacement away to Connacht – at the age of 25.
“I came on and it was one of those games where you have a stormer. Everything you touch just turns to gold,” he recalls. “I remember getting off the bus back home and Paul Turner followed me off and apologised for having let me go. He said I had proved him wrong and he got me in that week and signed me on a two-year deal.”
The versatile Coombs established himself as an important member of the Dragons squad over the next couple of years, but few could have foreseen what was to come next.
In the first 11 months of 2012, he only played two games due to injury, while virtually all of his 50-odd regional appearances up to that point had come at blindside flanker or No 8. And yet, in February 2013, he found himself starting in the second row for Wales against Ireland at the Millennium Stadium.
“People say I came out of the blue and I kind of did, if I’m honest, because I was injured, I came back, I had five good games at lock and then there was that massive injury problem for Wales,” he says.
So it was that Coombs was selected to make his Test debut by interim head coach Rob Howley, who was in charge with Warren Gatland away on Lions secondment.
It’s a day he will never forget, particularly the way it started, with his father