‘I’ve got every cap bar the senior one’
IPLAYED back in the days when you only got on the pitch as a replacement if someone was injured. Nine times I was on the bench for Wales and I never got on! In fact, I think I am the only Welshman to be selected in an original World Cup squad (1991) never to be capped. It’s a good quiz question but I’d rather have a cap than be the subject of a quiz question!
Rob Jones, a supremely talented player, was the first-choice scrumhalf so it was always going to be hard getting the No.9 jersey ahead of him. The 1989 game against New Zealand in Cardiff was the first time I was on the bench and was probably the closest I got. I was only 21 then. Warren Gatland was on the bench for them. I’ve still got the programme in the house somewhere. Rob went down injured and had a swollen hand so, at that point, I thought ‘I am coming on here’. But they strapped him up and it never happened. I sat on the bench another five times before losing my place when Chris Bridges came in, and winning it back for the World Cup.
During the game against Australia, Scott Gibbs came off injured and there were only two subs left, me and Mike Rayer. Mike’s a good mate of mine and he pleaded with the then Wales coach Alan Davies to put me on and I also remember Adrian Davies, who was in the stand, chipping in too. But Alan said, ‘no, the designated sub is you Mikey’ and on he went. Mike Hall and Dai Evans were on the pitch at the time and they’re also really close mates and they said had they have known, they’d have come off because there was only 90 seconds to go and we were losing 38-3 or whatever it was.
I think I have got every cap going except for a senior one. I have got U15s, U18s, Universities, Students, U21s, a B team cap and even a World Cup cap – all of them apart from the main one. Sometime later, when Graham Henry came in, I played for the Possibles v the Probables in a trial and scored a try and I heard I was going to be in the squad. But then I ruptured my Achilles captaining Swansea a week before it was announced. Clearly it wasn’t meant to be. It would have been nice, but there we are.
The late 80s and 90s wasn’t a great time for the Welsh national team but club rugby was strong. From memory, we had great crowds. Pontypridd and teams like that used to bring the fans down to Cardiff and there would be a great atmosphere. That’s what I think we are missing now. But there is now doubt about it, the national team has been far more successful since regional rugby was brought in.
Ironically when I lived in Swansea, my home city, I played for Cardiff and when I lived in Cardiff, I played for Swansea. I am a Cardiff rugby fan but a Swansea City football fan. Gareth Edwards and I, I think, are the only people with the same rugby-football allegiance. I played for Cardiff between 1988 and 1996. They were brilliant, social times and the best mates I have from rugby are definitely the Cardiff boys.
When professionalism came in, I had a decision to make about staying in Wales or going over the border to England. I knew Ian Bullerwell, who was in charge of Bedford at the time, and he was speaking to Mike and Nigel Walker and I about going there. We talked about getting a car up together from Cardiff but then Rob Jones got a contract to go to Bristol so Swansea came in for me and I decided to go with them. Mike would have been on more money, so he went to Bedford. Nige didn’t go, maybe Cardiff opened the chequebook a bit wider.
We were quite successful at Swansea. In my first year we won the league, the second we reached the Schweppes Cup final but then I ruptured my Achilles. I hung on for a couple more years but I was pretty much done by then.
In hindsight, I’d have loved to have played in England. A few years earlier, in ’93, Harlequins offered me a job in the City and that’s the biggest regret for me – that I turned it down. My employer at the time offered me more money so I stayed where I was. I can’t believe I didn’t do it. Whether it was a lack of balls, I don’t know. I’d just done two years in Cambridge, my girlfriend who is now my wife was in London and if I’d have known then what I know now I would’ve done it. I liked open play and a bit of a party atmosphere so I think Quins would’ve been a good fit.
As well as being involved in some big club games – playing the All Blacks for Cardiff at the national stadium is right up there – I was fortunate to appear in two Varsity Matches for Cambridge. I was quite ill in ’89 when we beat quite a strong Oxford team so that it was more of a case of getting through that game than necessarily enjoying it. Steve James, the cricketer, was on the bench for me. He was pretty much warming up the whole game because I was struggling but it got quite tight at the end and I stayed on. I think he was quite gutted because he’d have been a Double Blue with his cricket had he got on. The second one I enjoyed much more because I was fit and healthy even if the result went against us.
Andy Moore and I have been confused many, many times. We played against each other from the age of 15 all the way through. We were both at Swansea University together, both at Cardiff together and in that second Varsity Match, I played nine for Cambridge and he played nine for Oxford and scored for them. I was also best man at his wedding. There’s eight of us that go on a golf trip every year and Andy is on it as well so the fact he was 10 yards offside for the try does come up now and again. I don’t think VAR would’ve been needed, just a ref with two eyes!
When my three beautiful daughters were younger there sadly just wasn’t the opportunities for girls to play rugby. Had that been the case then maybe I’d have got involved in a club and maybe got into coaching. But I was never really that tempted, I was just so busy with the business which I set up when rugby went professional. I’m a chartered financial planner and most of my clients are commercial, but I look after a few of the rugby boys and a few footballers as well so that keeps my thirst for sport going.
“Harlequins offered me a job in the City and my big regret is that I turned it down”