Peter Stringer The former scrum half tells Jess O Sullivan about his turn as a ballroom dancer
Former Irish international rugby player Peter Stringer tells Jess O Sullivan why Dancing with the Stars is teaching him to let go and why all the other celebs want a piece of him
Watching Peter Stringer’s face in the 31st minute of the 2006 Heineken Cup Final against Biarritz, you would never guess that the Munster scrumhalf had just scored a crucial and utterly unforgettable try. A sea of red has erupted in euphoric celebration in the Millennium Stadium, yet Stringer remains a study in self-control. There is no smile or celebration as he jogs back into place to focus on the rest of the game. If he is feeling anything close to elation, it has been buried deep.
It’s early and I am sitting with Peter at the Dublin dance studio where he rehearses with his pro partner, Ksenia Zsikhotska. It’s just before he starts his gruelling daily dance lesson. Of course, he’s already been to the gym this morning and looks like he could bench press a truck. I sit up straighter to try to minimise the evidence of my Christmas excess.
Peter recalls watching the clip from that 2006 final. “When I scored that try you’d swear we had just lost another Heineken Cup Final. My face says: ‘Okay, focus! There’s still more time to go in the game. Don’t let yourself go in the moment.’” How then, I wonder aloud, can a man so used to reining in his emotions, learn to suddenly let it all out on Dancing with the Stars, and in a bright pink suit too? “Not being that kind of extroverted person, it’s a huge challenge for me,” admits Peter. Did that magenta two-piece help him find his inner peacock, as he seemed quite comfortable popping his shiny new lapels and playing up to the cameras? Not at all, he assures me; his ease in front of the cameras is hard won. “That does not come naturally to me in the slightest. It took so many rehearsals just for me to feel comfortable in front of camera. The others are performers, and you can see that they have that natural thing in front of the camera, and I don’t have that. But you just have to let yourself go.”
His first day filming the show at Ardmore Studios in Bray, Co Wicklow was a baptism of fire. “The director, producers, choreographers are standing in front of you with 15 people and you’re told to ‘just freestyle’ for 20 minutes. That is my worst nightmare. They were like, ‘Just give us something!’ and I had to say, ‘This is it.’ Then halfway through, they asked would it help if we put on some music. There was no music. It was traumatic.”
Surely he has been in more unnerving situations than freestyle dancing? After all, this is the guy who explains the natural drop in his dance posture as being down to the fact that he’s always had to be “ready to brace on the field” as 18-stone guys run at him. Did his decades of work with performance coaches teach him any techniques he could use for this new kind of performance? Perhaps visualising himself drunk at a family wedding with the band belting out Lou Beta’s Mambo No. 5? “No, I’ve never had that drunken dance thing. I don’t drink, so I’ve never had drunken ventures onto a dancefloor. I’m literally starting from scratch, so it’s terrifying. You always have that fear, especially as a non-drinker, that all eyes are on you.”
Stringer says his wife Debbie, with whom he has a young son Noah (almost 2), was instrumental in helping him take that first tentative step outside his comfort zone. “That first day, when I arrived into wardrobe and saw the pink suit, it really hit me then. I rang Debbie and said, ‘I don’t know if I can wear something like this.’ I sent her a photograph and she said: ‘Look, you’re going to be wearing sequins, you’re going to be wearing all sorts of colours. You’ve just got to embrace everything that you do. Stand alone in a pink suit and yes, it stands out. But if you put it in the context of everyone around you, the glitz, glamour, the fake tan – you’ve got to do it for the moment.’I’ve come around to the thinking that there’s a certain bravery in doing this. It’s so easy to say no to things in life, but I’m someone that lives with regrets. I know that when the end of March came, if I hadn’t done this, I’d have regretted it.And like anything I commit to, now that I’m doing it, I’m giving it 100 per cent.”
You could never accuse Stringer of a lack of bravery in his career. However, given the fierce banter rugby dressing rooms are famous for, there’s a definite bravery in putting himself at the mercy of his former teammates. However, he assures me that, apart from the expected Whatsapp group slagging, they are also proud of their friend. “To be fair, they’ve been quite supportive. There is a group and Peter Clohessy [‘The Claw’] put up one of the clips from my first dance, the salsa. He had a zoomed-in still shot of the heels I was wearing, and it just said: ‘Look at the heels on that langer! Laughy face emoji’. So on the group chats, yeah, it’s like that, but then Donncha O’Callaghan will text me and say: ‘Fair play.’”
Stringer now has a whole new group of admirers among his fellow contestants, thanks to his impressive physical condition. Staying in peak form is something Stringer has been dedicated to his entire career, essential for him to play at the highest level. He announced his retirement from the Worcester Warriors last June at the age of 40. He says fitness is his obsession and he is equally passionate about sharing his wealth of knowledge with others. So much so that he has taken fellow DWTS contestant Clelia Murphy under his wing for some work-out sessions. “She is brilliant. We’re in the gym, doing fitness work alongside all of this. At the start, she wanted to document it all on her Instagram, and I tell her we can take a few clips, but we get our training done. We can talk after. So I’m quite strict.” The other contestants are now lining up for a Stringer gym session. “Jake Carter was on yesterday, asking, ‘When can we get in the gym? I need to get in some sessions with you.’So they all want a bit of me now, but that’s exactly what I love.’ I suggest that he pitch a spin-off show, Training With The Stars. I’d certainly watch it.
Stringer explains that in the last few years of playing in the UK, his younger teammates naturally gravitated towards him for guidance on how to stay fit in peak condition. “The information that I’ve absorbed over the last 25 years in terms of looking after myself, you automatically assume people know. But even my fellow professionals don’t. We’re in an environment where it was laid on a plate for us: we were told what to wear, what to eat and where to be, so you forget about thinking for yourself. When you do have your time to yourself at home in the evening, some guys don’t know how to eat for themselves or recover well. There have been guys on the squad who are 18 years of age and I’ve been older than their parents in my last few years of being a player. You automatically assume because they’re in the squad that they know the same things as you do, but obviously they don’t because they don’t have the same experience. You take guys for a session and then without knowing it you’ve become a mentor. So that kind of player to mentor to coach transition has been really seamless.”
Now that he has introduced his training regime to the world of dance, would he consider keeping a toe on the dancefloor after the show ends? He admits that the last time he danced was at his wedding in 2015. “Actually, I would enjoy that. I hadn’t even thought about it, but knowing what I know now and being able to dance with Debbie would be amazing. It’d be nice to be like: ‘Hit it!’ and to have that confidence. We’d be so annoying at weddings. Everyone would be like: ‘Oh, they’re out again! Peter and Debbie.’And of course, technically, I would be the pro in the relationship.”
Stringer says that his perception of dancing has totally changed. Not only that, he wholeheartedly agrees that it’s good for young people to see role models like himself and Dublin footballer Dennis Bastick doing an activity not previously associated with male sports stars. “If I had seen dance onTV before, I’d be like: ‘That’s not for me, definitely not.’ But now I’m really seeing it, how guys hold their frame, with a pasodoble for instance, and how aggressive and how manly that can be. Seeing what these guys, the dancers can do, in terms of the lifts, the speed, the footwork and the co-ordination, they are to be respected.”
Although his son Noah is still very young, he loves his dad’s new pastime. “When Debbie asks ‘What’s Daddy doing?’ He will do a little bit of a jiggle around.” What if Noah decided sport wasn’t for him and wanted to dance instead? “I’ve been in a position where I love what I do, and people should love what they do, no matter what it is. If you’re not motivated in what you’re doing, you’re not going to apply yourself. It’s all about the football at the moment; he’s got a cracking left foot, so whether that’s for dancing or for kicking, whatever makes him happy.”
For now, learning to dance is giving Peter Stringer yet another reason to smile, and has shown us all that he is as much of a legend on the dancefloor, as he was on the pitch. Oh, and he’ll be keeping the pink jacket, thanks very much.