Phillips: The truth about incident... and my chats That Calzaghe with William
AS it did for a lot of players, the 2008 Wales Grand Slam sent Mike Phillips’ profile soaring.
After that tournament, everywhere he went, people would recognise him and, at times, it would work against him.
In the autumn of that year, Phillips was out of action with a knee injury and watched Wales play Canada in a bar with the alsoinjured Gavin Henson.
During the match, Phillips describes ‘random people’ taking pictures of him and Henson and he admits ‘we might have been a bit rude’.
The following week, he was called into a meeting with Wales team manager Alan Phillips (Thumper), Wales boss Warren Gatland, attack coach Rob Howley and Ospreys coach Sean Holley.
The meeting was called to discuss a list of complaints that had been made against Phillips.
Speaking in his new book ‘Half Truths’ (out on October 21), which WalesOnline are serialising, the former scrum-half recalls the events...
MIKE’S TALE
Iwalked in quite cocky but I left the room feeling about two feet tall. They read out a list of complaints that they’d received about my behaviour over the previous few months.
I wasn’t whiter than white. Not by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a lot of bulls**t. It was things like having a word with a bouncer for him to try and let me jump the queue at a nightclub. Come on, how many people have tried that?
The best complaint, which was totally false, involved Welsh boxing legend Joe Calzaghe. I was out one night and my ex-girlfriend and Joe happened to be in the same club as me. She was trying to wind me up by talking to him in front of me and all that sort of stuff.
To be clear, Joe wasn’t doing anything wrong and it wasn’t him who filed the complaint, I’ve checked that with him. He just happened to be the one that got caught up in her nonsense. I’ve met Joe on a number of occasions down the years and he’s a great guy who had a hell of a career.
Anyway, I left because she was doing my head in. At this meeting, one of the complaints was that I’d tried starting on Joe that night! Seriously, they thought I’d tried starting a fight with the guy who is the longest-reigning super-middleweight world champion in boxing history, the guy who never lost a fight in his entire career. Thumper went on reading the rest of his list and then said: “Do you have any comment to make?”
So I replied: “Look, I did not start
on Joe Calzaghe. Are you mad? Why would I start on Joe Calzaghe?”
The meeting was a bit intense, but I think they were trying to help. There wasn’t really a warning fired, but I got the message. They didn’t have to say it, but it was essentially them pointing out that if I carried on, I was eventually going to get myself in real trouble. I thought it was a bit ironic, mind, because these were the same people who wanted me to be a bit wild and aggressive when it suited them.
Phillips’ career took him to France and while playing for
MIKE’S TALE
IN some ways, I have Jamie [Roberts] to thank for helping me meet my wife. He brought in this tradition called ‘The Paris
Dining Club’. Once a week, all the foreign players would meet up and it would be one player’s responsibility to pick a different restaurant every week. We’d all go, enjoy the food and have a few beers, nothing too hectic. It was a great way of mixing it up, seeing the city and all it had to offer.
On one such night in my final season, we met at the bar near where Dan Carter had at his house, had a couple of beers and then went out to this lovely restaurant. It was me, Dan, Casey Laulala and Yannick Nyanga, who is French, but everyone was welcome, really.
Halfway through the night, Dan returns to the table and some shots appear. He says to me: “Mike, those girls over there have just bought you some shots, you’d better go and say thank you.” So I’m feeling pretty good about myself at this point.
I stroll over to this table where three women are enjoying their evening, sit down and begin thanking them for the shots. They’re looking at me, probably thinking ‘who the f*** is this guy and what is up to?’ I never found out who actually bought the shots that night, but it certainly wasn’t one of the three women. I reckon it was Carter.
I was the only single one out and the boys were having a bit of banter. Anyway, the woman I sat down next to is now my wife. I chased her around that evening but she wasn’t interested. It turned out she was mates with Yannick so he put me in touch, we went on a couple of dates and the rest is history.
As Patron of the WRU, Prince William often attends Welsh rugby matches and will sometimes go down to the dressing room to meet the players after matches.
One such occasion was after Wales beat England 30-3 to win the 2013 Six Nations and deny their rivals a Grand Slam.
And Prince William bumped into a pumped-up Mike Phillips, who was in very high spirits...
MIKE’S TALE
OCCASIONALLY after matches, Prince William will also come down to the changing room to meet the players. He’s the Welsh Rugby Union’s patron so he came down from time to time and this was one such occasion.
I was on cloud nine at the time, so when he came around to me, with a cheeky grin on my face I said: “When you get the big job now, you’ve got to make me a sir, alright?”
To which he replied: “Yeah, yeah okay!” Let’s hope he doesn’t forget. Sir Mike has got a lovely ring to it.
This wasn’t the first time our paths had crossed. I first met Prince William at Boodles Boxing Ball in London in 2008. I was there with Lee Bryne and absolutely nobody knew us there. As a joke, I went up to a photographer and said: “Apparently Mike Phillips is in here tonight.” And his response was: “Who?” Fair play, he did me there.
Halfway through the night myself and Lee are minding our own business by the bar when some random guy approaches us and says: “He’s seen you’re here and Prince William will be coming up to chat to you in a moment.”
Sure enough, he came up to us shortly after and started having a chat and asked why we were there. My response was: “I’m just looking for a girl with a rich dad.” Which gave him a laugh. Every time I met him after that he was always the same – engaged in what you’re saying, asking questions, just brilliant.