RAGING BULL
Ulster farmer Rory Best led Ireland to their historic win over the All Blacks. The Lions have found their...
‘The Six Nations will be key to who is captain’
HE often spends his evenings wrestling bulls, but there are other beasts that Rory Best is reluctant to even talk or think about. The Lions.
For the acclaimed Ireland captain and title- chasing cattle farmer, it is a case of once bitten, twice shy. What happened four years ago means that the 34-year-old is refusing to believe the hype this time.
In 2013, the Ulster hooker was repeatedly told his form would earn him a place among the elite of British and Irish rugby for the trip to Australia. He was omitted — initially, anyway — and it was a devastating experience.
Now, as the man who led Joe Schmidt’s Irish immortals in their historic victory over the All Blacks last November, Best is not just seen as a shoo-in for selection to tour New Zealand this summer, he is joint-favourite — with Wales’ Alun Wyn Jones — to captain the Lions.
Warren Gatland, the Lions head coach, said last month: ‘Best has done a really good job. He looks comfortable. He has grown into that leadership role.’
A few weeks earlier, Andy Farrell, Ireland’s English coach who will once again serve as the Lions defence guru, was asked about the captaincy and said: ‘There’s no doubt (Best) is a contender when he’s doing as good a job as he is for his national team.’
Despite this feedback — and the fact that Best is a naturally engaging character — he is uncomfortable even discussing this subject. Being cast as a front-runner for the captaincy does not sit easily with him.
Speaking to Sportsmail before Ulster’s Champions Cup clash with Exeter at Sandy Park tomorrow, the Test centurion said: ‘Four years ago, everyone was talking about who was going (on the Lions tour) and your name gets mentioned. I probably started to believe all that.
‘The announcement was so public. We were training and the first I knew what was happening was when someone else told me. It felt a bit like a public humiliation. Everyone thinks you’re going and you don’t go.
‘It was really tough for me, but even tougher for my family. They were devastated for me. Then, (after being called up as a replacement for the banned Dylan Hartley) just the way I played over there — the whole thing was such a disappointment. That’s why I avoid the subject. If you ask me would I like to go, of course I would. It would be a dream, but if I dwell on it, I’d feel like I’m setting myself up for disappointment, and also I might take my eye off what I am trying to do now.’
His outlook is understandable but there is no escaping the speculation until Gatland announces his captain in the spring. Best will try to ignore it but he knows about the bookies’ odds and his place high on the assumed short-list. Still, he is adamant that the forthcoming Six Nations will settle the matter.
‘Until a month or so ago, Dylan (Hartley) was the favourite — or one of the favourites,’ he said, of his English rival. ‘Performances in the Six Nations will be key.
‘Warren said the other day that the England-Wales game four years ago essentially became a trial game.
‘That’s what it comes down to — selection based on six or eight t months. I don’t say the three-and-aa- half years in between are irrelevant but they’re not as important.
‘From my point of view, it was such a disappointing experience in 2013 so, yeah, it would be nice to rectify that, but I’m not allowing that to dominate my thinking.’
Best is far more at ease with talk of farming, the family business to whichhi h heh will ill dedicated di t hi himself lf f fullll time once his time as a player has run its course. While the bulk of the Best family land is given over to crops, Rory has built up a stock of cattle since 2009. He is currently focused on the task of taming bulls to take them to summer agricultural shows. ‘I’m concentrating on show cattle,’cattle ’ he said.said ‘We haveha five or six bulls that we’re getting ready — we’re trying to break them. I do that in the evenings, after training. I’ll go out, put the halter on them, tie them and Neil Walker, a good friend from school, will check them with me.
‘They go bananas, so it’s a bit of a wrestling match, but it’s just about
getting them used to being tied and handled so they know we’re not the enemy. We are taming them so that when we take them to shows and walk them round it’s as close to walking a dog as possible!’
It soon becomes apparent that Best’s competitive streak applies to his farming as well as his rugby. He has his eyes on future prizes.
‘The big one is Balmoral — the Ulster Agriculture Society Show,’ he said. ‘It’s recently moved to the Maze Prison site. We’re a long way off winning, but that is where you want to go in the farming world. We won our first trophy this year. We had the best stock bull.’
Best admits he did not grow up dreaming of playing for Ulster and Ireland. Rather, he hoped to emulate his father by representing the local Banbridge club and do well at farming. As a teenager, he would come in from school and go into the fields to gather bales. He was never afraid of putting in a long shift.
‘I was combining and baling,’ he said. ‘You had to wait for it to dry, so it was mid-morning by the time it was dry enough to start combining. I’d be doing that until 10 or 11pm.
‘I remember I was once out there until 3am. I was 16. Eventually, dad said, “Right, enough” — then I was up for school the next day!’
Even now, he is content spending Saturdays on his tractor, cleaning out the yard. But when the local agricultural shows are held in June, he may have to rely on others to take the bulls. Barring injury, he is destined to be on the other side of the world with the Lions — and maybe even leading them — with the aim of taming Kiwis.