BANGERS AND SMASH
Wales prop Rob Evans on big catches and making his own sausages
ROB EVANS lives a life in technicolour. Anyone who decries the absence of characters in rugby union should spend half an hour in the company of the quick-witted Welsh prop.
From rearing pigs for his own line in sausages to chilling out fishing on the Pembrokeshire coast, in between stints as one of the game’s finest attacking forwards, the world of the Scarlets star is suitably vibrant.
But while you may expect him to be the life and soul of any party, rather than downing five pints at the pub 25-yearold Evans finds more wholesome ways to unwind after a tough Test.
‘I go out fishing quite a bit,’ he says as he prepares to face Scotland tomorrow in the NatWest 6 Nations. ‘It is nice to relax down in Pembrokeshire, out of the way, on the water, no hassle.
‘I grew up in the country near Haverfordwest, where there are quite a lot of rivers — it was not hard for me to pop down and go fishing for an hour or two. When I was young there was a river down on the farm.
‘When my uncle had had enough of me, he would send me down there for a couple of hours.’
Last year Evans caught a fiveanda- half- pound bass which ‘tasted lovely on the barbie’, but he is quick to play down his fishing expertise. ‘Don’t get me wrong I am no Robson Green, like,’ he quips. ‘I’m Rob Evs!’
He is popular too — you would be if you turned up to training with a van of freshly made sausages. At one point Evans had six Landrace pigs – but they soon became ‘Bobby’s Bangers’, made into various flavours including pork with leek, apple and chilli, by his local butcher four miles from Puncheston. He flogged them to his Scarlets team-mates.
‘They were selling like hot…dogs mate!’ he laughs. ‘The boys had about 100 packs. They had a good deal, don’t get me wrong.
‘ Our coach Wayne Pivac loved them. He keeps asking me when more are coming! It is a bit of a hobby — there is nothing like watching a pig eat and grow.’
Evans himself has developed into a brilliant allcourt frontrower, as befits the modern game. Now with 20 caps, not only can he hold up a scrum, but is becoming a mighty ball-handling prop. Often he will pop up at first receiver, effortlessly drawing the defender and shipping the ball on, pass and move, the Scarlets way. Against Australia for Wales in November, he made 12 passes — no forward on either side completed more. ‘I love getting my hands on the ball,’ Evans (below) says. ‘It is a big part of my game. It is the way it is going, so it is thanks to the coaches like Rob Howley for putting confidence in me and giving me the licence to play, pass, carry and back myself.’ That Wallabies match marked his return following six weeks on the sidelines. When describing the injury that kept him out, the usually effervescent Evans talks more quietly. On September 29, for Scarlets against Connacht in the Pro 14, he took a nasty blow to the head. ‘I went in for a tackle and one of my own players hit my head,’ he recalls. ‘I felt all right that night and the next day. Then my dad was scraping some gravel outside. ‘I went out to speak to him and just felt a bit weird. I didn’t like the sound of it, went inside and was sick straight away. That was continuous for a couple of days. I didn’t get over it for a good few weeks. I went to do some tests in Birmingham and failed them because I was not symptom-free. I had bad, constant headaches, wasn’t sleeping well, but managed to get over it in five or six weeks.
‘It was scary. It has definitely opened my eyes to how serious concussions can be. The hardest thing is that you don’t know when you are going to get better.
‘It is not like a broken finger where you know it is six weeks, you are sitting there watching the boys playing thinking, “Ah, when am I going to be back?”’
Luckily, having followed the correct head-injury protocols, Evans has returned from his distressing concussion and now he is about to take on Scotland in the first match of the Championship.
He says. ‘It will be a massive game. I am looking forward to it.’ And many look forward to seeing him, too, as Wales try to paint the Six Nations red. THE Principality Stadium roof will be closed for Wales’ clash with Scotland. Both sides need to agree on the closure and the Scots were not sure, but Cardiff is set to be hit by a deluge of rain tomorrow morning, so they have now agreed.
Meanwhile, Wales suffered another injury blow yesterday when hooker Scott Baldwin was ruled out for the rest of the season with a foot injury sustained in training.