A REAL HUNGER TO SUCCEED IS A KEY FACTOR IN DWAYNE’S WORLD
FOR 20 years, rugby has been a way of life for Dwayne Peel.
He went straight from school to the Scarlets and was playing for Wales by the time he was 19, with 79 Test appearances coming his way in all, including three for the Lions.
Then, when he hung up his boots at 34, he went immediately into coaching, with a spell at Bristol followed by his current role with Ulster.
When he spoke to me from his home in Belfast, I found a man who considers himself to be very fortunate.
“I haven’t stopped,” he said. “I have made a living out of rugby for 20 years.
“I’ve known no different really. “I left school at 17 and signed a contract straightaway. That was it basically. I was a professional rugby player from there on.
“When they finish playing, a lot of people will stop and go into a different job and the change of life comes.
“But, touch wood, that’s not happened for me yet. I have gone straight into coaching and I am loving it.”
It’s quite rare to get a long, indepth interview with Peel, a man who has now been away from Wales for some 12 years.
And he remains someone who considers his answers carefully on certain topics, as I found when I raised the subject of him losing his Test place to Mike Phillips during the Warren Gatland era.
He was always a safe pair of hands as a player, seldom putting a foot wrong either on or off the pitch, very rarely making a mistake at scrumhalf or when talking to the media.
Ultra-professional and dedicated to his art, he spent hour upon hour on the practice field, while he always handled himself well, coming across as both sensible and focused.
So, I wonder, where did those traits come from?
“From a young age, I think I was quite driven, that would be the word I suppose,” he replies.
“Playing for Wales was a massive thing and became my dream as I got older.
“But, initially, my dream was play for the Scarlets.
“As a kid, I would go down and watch the games with my dad.
“Those were my memories as a child, that’s what I looked forward to.
“My dream was to play for Tumble first, then the Scarlets and Wales beto yond that.”
The initial goal was achieved when he signed for Llanelli as a teenager and that brought him into contact with a man who was to have a huge influence on his career, Gareth Jenkins.
“He had such passion for the town and the club and he sort of instilled that in you, which made you grow a bit more when you played there,” Peel said.
“He loved it and he made you want to fight for the cause.
“That was his massive strength. There was his rugby coaching as well, but to Gareth it meant so much to represent the club and the town.
“I think it’s so important from a coach’s perspective to try to drive that.
“That’s one thing Gareth definitely had was passion for the club and passion for the area and I loved that.
“From that perspective, he was huge. He was my first coach and there to almost the end of my time there.
“I reckon if you spoke to most people who played under him, they’d have the same things to say really.”
Under the tutelage of Jenkins, the young Peel’s reputation grew and he made his Wales debut as a replacement against Japan in Tokyo in June 2001, when he was still a couple of months short of his 20th birthday.
The first start came against South Africa 12 months later and he was to be first choice for much of the following six years, becoming the youngest player to reach 50 Welsh caps.
Ask him to choose his favourite match in the famous red jersey and he unsurprisingly picks out the Grand Slam-sealing victory over Ireland in March 2005.
But it’s the long build-up to that first clean sweep in 27 years that makes the memory all the sweeter for him.
“We had been through some tough times before that,” he recalls.
“When I first started playing for Wales, there was an abundance of experience there really, with Scott Quinnell, Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Scott Gibbs, Allan Bateman.
“I’d grown up watching these guys. “Then, within a year or two, all those had left, so what we were left with was really young guys.
“It was tough because we were all still learning. Steve Hansen and Scott Johnson were there as coaches and we learned so much under those guys. They were massively influential at the time.
“But we had been through some hurt as well.
“To come out of that and get that success in 2005 was extra special because the group had been together so long and grown up together.
“We had been through it all together.”
Peel has vivid memories of the title-clinching Ireland match in Cardiff, memories enhanced by a recent refresher.
“The game was on TV the other day and I watched it,” he says.
“I did all right, not too bad! “The France game was the turning point that season and the momentum was with us after that.
“The week of the Ireland game there was such a swell of anticipation. It was huge. But it wasn’t a daunting anticipation, it was really exciting.”
And that anticipation was fulfilled, as Wales completed the job with a comfortable 32-20 victory.
“I can vividly remember with about two minutes to go, there were a couple of line-outs we had near where the tunnel is, on that side of the pitch,” said Peel.
“The time was up basically, there was 80 minutes on the clock and everyone was going crazy, the crowd and all the staff. Everyone was celebrating on the side of the pitch.
“That was a really cool moment. It was a surreal thing.”
Then came the post-match brations.
“It took us ages to get to the Hilton Hotel because there were so many people around and I remember having to go in through the back door to get into the function,” he said.
“It was like a human tunnel basically we had to run through. It was awesome. That night was a bit fuzzy and there were some sore heads the morning after, to be fair, a lot of headaches.
“We had to do press in the morning and the boys were in no state to do that!
“But even when you’ve got a hangover, talking about a win like that’s celenot too bad. It was good great memories.”
Still only 23, Peel had been a pivotal figure in the Grand Slam triumph, a catalyst who set the tempo for the team with his trademark tapand-gos and his speedy service.
“That was definitely the best rugby I played for Wales,” he acknowledges.
His scintillating form saw him selected for that summer’s Lions tour of New Zealand, where he started all three Tests.
“For me, I loved every minute of it,” he says.
“Obviously there was the disappointment of the series loss, but the All Blacks were just the better side. “They were outstanding.
“I really enjoyed the tour. It was a dream to get there and I look back on it with fond memories.
“For me personally, it was great.” Peel remained firmly established as Wales’s No. 9 for the next two years, but then all that changed with the arrival of Gatland at the end of 2007.
The Kiwi coach opted for Phillips as his scrum-half and the die was cast.
Peel was only to start four more Tests – against Italy, USA, Samoa and Australia – before winning his 76th and final cap as a replacement versus France in 2011. fun, just