MY LIFE IN RUGBY

BARRY STEWART THE FORMER SCOTLAND, EDINBURGH, SALE AND NORTHAMPTON PROP

My journey from medical write-off in my mid-20s to winning Premiership and European honours with Sale and Northampton was brilliant, and one I look back on with as much bemusement as everyone else.

With lots of established players leaving to go south or overseas at the dawn of professionalism, young guys like myself got a lot of opportunities and in hindsight, I probably played too much too soon.

My body was starting to fall apart and, by 2000, when I won the last of my four Scotland caps (three against the All Blacks), my neck had packed in.

I had compression fractures and the advice at the time was that I should call it a day, and the SRU agreed. I was completely blinded to the game, it was all I wanted to do, so to be told that news was devastating. I needed to hear it from someone else, before I gave up my dream, and luckily, I managed to have a conversation with the same neck specialist who looked after Jason Leonard. His verdict was that I didn’t stand any greater chance of suffering an horrific injury than anyone else in the front row. That was all I needed to hear.

Still, given the original diagnosis, it was not easy to find a club willing to take me on but, just as I thought the trail had gone cold an old team mate of mine at Edinburgh, Rowen Shepherd, told me that Sale were looking for cover as Stuey Turner was having to nurse a bad back.

I owe so much to my time at Sale, I can’t stress how precious and enjoyable it was. I wasn’t in a great place when I came from Edinburgh, things in my personal life weren’t going the way I wanted them to and that all changed when I went there.

There isn’t one aspect of my time there, from 2001-2007, that I would change. Not even being too close for comfort to kitman Robbie Dickson’s naked parachute jump off the luggage rack on the team coach! You can work out what he wanted to use as the rip-cord!

I was incredibly lucky to arrive at Heywood Road at a time when this small town in Cheshire was building towards something incredible. We won two European Challenge Cups while I was there and the second one, against Pau, gave us the self-belief to then go on and win the Premiership in 2006. It wasn’t until Chris Mayor outstripped their defence that it really hit home that Leicester were there for the taking. Nobody expected us to win as well as we did (45-20) and I love reminding Cockers of the score when I see him around Edinburgh. His rugby pedigree is a lot richer than mine, but it is always good if you can throw one thing back!

I’d have taken a pay cut to stay at Sale, I loved it that much, but in the end I am glad I went to Northampton because I enjoyed myself there too, even if it meant working with S&C coach Nick Johnston again! I remember the horror of the changing room when they found out what he was all about, whereas I knew his methods from our time together at Sale. Nick is a guy who can make you sick in three metres squared with his punishing routines. He was ahead of his time and just what Saints needed to get back to where they wanted to be: brutal but brutally effective.

After sweeping everyone aside in National One we returned to the Premiership and improved year on year, lifting the Challenge Cup before it was time for me to call it a day. I’m proud to have been able to call myself a Saintsman as well as a Shark, and while it was somewhat strange to step out at Edgeley Park in an away shirt in my final game, it was an appropriate way to bow out.