I ONLY ‘TICKLED’ ALUN WYN TO WIND HIM UP
I THOUGHT I knew exactly how far I could push my luck. Especially when it came to the rugby player’s favourite wind-up of all — giving a cheeky tweak to a player’s meat and two veg. Players have been flicking each other in the balls on and off the pitch for as long as anyone can remember. When I was touring with the Lions in 2017 a couple of the lads would always flick me in the groin when we were going down the tunnel. It became a custom, a bit of silly laddish bonding. When you do it to your opposite number on the pitch, however, it’s all about winding him up, gaining a psychological advantage. You never go in hard, never inflict pain. You want to mess with his concentration. That was my plan with Alun Wyn Jones when we played Wales earlier this year. A scuffle kicked off between a few players after 10 minutes. I was miffed. It was holding up the game. I saw Alun Wyn go into the melee again. There was more pushing and shoving. It was getting boring now. F*** it. I’ll play Jones at his own game, do something to distract him. I’d been on the p*** with him during the Lions tour in 2017 and got to know him quite well. I thought I’d just do something silly and make him laugh. Simple. I walked calmly in and gave his tackle a gentle tickle. It was something he did to me once on the Lions tour. I wasn’t in the least bit worried about how he’d take it. I knew he’d laugh. He did not laugh. He just looked at the touch judge as if to say, ‘Sir? urgh!’ It was more for the officials’ benefit because he wasn’t really bothered. The situation was defused, we played on and won the game and the Triple Crown. I paraded around the pitch, drinking in the glory, having played well. I didn’t have a care in the world. After the match I had a pint with Jones and he wasn’t worried, which didn’t surprise me. Why would he be? It was only later that he tipped me off that he was under pressure from World Rugby to make a stand. It had become a huge story. Headlines everywhere, #fondlegate trending on Twitter. Some saying it was genius, others that I’d committed an assault. I hoped for a misconduct charge, a slap on the wrist for inappropriate behaviour and a short ban. That was dim of me. World Rugby did not have rules about touching another player’s tackle, so they used the rule for ‘grabbing, twisting or squeezing the genitals’, for which the shortest ban was 12 weeks. In the end I got a ‘reduced’ ban of 10 weeks, after making an apology. Huge lesson learned.