‘I’m English born and bred,... but I will be supporting Wales 100 per cent this weekend’
Originally hailing from Essex, scrum giant Tony Copsey could have played for England, but chose Wales instead after impressing with Llanelli – he was part of the team that brought the old enemy to its knees in 1993. Simon Thomas catches up with the second
TONY Copsey may have ‘made in England’ tattooed on his backside, but he will be fully behind the Welsh cause today just as he was 30 years ago when he proudly wore the famous red jersey. The Essex-born second row was part of the Wales team that recorded a memorable 10-9 victory over the old enemy in Cardiff during the 1993 Five Nations when current WRU chairman Ieuan Evans scored the winning try.
In all, he earned 16 caps for his adopted country, having qualified via a lengthy residency period after making his name with Llanelli, also sharing in the 1994 Championship title triumph.
Now 58 and a successful businessman, he remains a passionate Wales supporter and will be at the Principality Stadium this afternoon hoping to see Warren Gatland’s team beat England.
His story is certainly one with a difference, so where better to begin than at the beginning?
“I was born in Romford and raised in a beautiful village called Dagenham just off the banks of the River Thames!” he declares dryly when we catch up for a chat.
“I went to school at a place called St Edward’s, which was next door to West Ham United’s training ground, so it was very much a football dominated area.
“But, funnily enough, as further proof that Wales has had a massive influence on my life, I had a couple of Welsh-trained sports masters who said, ‘Right, you’re playing rugby’.
“Bizarrely, Jason Leonard and Damian Cronin both lived within spitting distance of where I did. We all came from within pretty much half a square mile of each other. We are all from that neck of the woods. One played for England, one for Scotland and one for Wales!”
Starting out in the back row at school, Copsey then moved to lock forward in his teens.
“I was always tallish, but then I shot up when I was around 16. I grew almost a foot over a summer. I got my height and then I had to fill out quickly.”
Selected for the district and then his county at colts level, a move to nearby Saracens would have seemed the more obvious route, but instead he opted to head for Wales.
“Rugby was of interest and Cardiff was the place to go to become a student and really concentrate on the sport a bit more seriously. I was pretty much thinking I would have a good time as well. That’s really how I approached it.
“I knew a few guys who had gone to college there, so I used to go down for the international weekends and I thought this looks good fun, I think I will try this out.”
Hearing his plans, Copsey’s pals decided it was time to leave the then 16-year-old with a lasting reminder of his roots.
“Where I’m from, the lads are quite lively, you could say,” he explains. “When they heard I was moving, one of them decided, ‘Right, okay, you’re going to end up playing for Wales. We need to make sure you’re stamped before you go’.
“So a very drunken night followed with about 15 lads kidnapping me and taking me to a tattoo parlour. That was the last thing I wanted to have done, so there was a bit of a fight. In the end, we all agreed if we are actually going to do this, we’ve all got to have it done.
“So 15 guys, in a really stupid drunken moment, after a bit of fighting, had that tattoo done. It’s one of those moments in life you regret, but there we go.”
Copsey continues: “Ieuan (Evans) always said I should have a tattoo over it, saying ‘refined in Wales’!
“It’s pretty much faded because it was the worst tattoo ever. As you can imagine, I was fighting like b ***** y, so it’s not very good. It’s almost a bit of biro which you can hardly read.”
On arriving in Cardiff, the teenage Copsey initially sought employment.
“I did an apprenticeship in production engineering, so I was working as an engineer and doing a little bit of door work at nightclubs as well.”
Then he took up a place at South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education, today known as Cardiff Metropolitan University. His rugby rise there was to be meteoric.
“That’s really where the journey took off. I started in the third team, got into the seconds and then the first team. My third game for the college was against Llanelli. After the match, Gareth Jenkins and Phil May came up to me and said we’d like you to consider joining the club.”
Copsey made his debut for the Scarlets against Arklow RFC in County Wicklow in March 1988 on the weekend that Wales won the Triple Crown with victory over Ireland at Lansdowne Road.
“I was met at the train station in Dublin by the three godfathers of Llanelli – Norman Gale, Stuart Gallacher and Ray Gravell – bless them all.
“When you are met off the train by those three gentlemen, there is no mistaking how important entering that club is to everybody. There is a clear responsibility. It’s not just playing for yourself, it’s drummed into you that you are playing for the town, for west Wales.
“You walk into that dressing room at Stradey Park, with the players at the time – Phil May, Jonathan Davies, Laurence Delaney, Nigel Davies – you are walking into Welsh royalty and playing at a club where it’s made very clear how much the Welsh nationality, the town of Llanelli, that whole thing means to everybody.
“I was an English lad playing in the most Welsh of clubs, with Welsh language calls at the lineout. But because I played for their club, I was accepted 100 per cent. There was never a problem, never an issue.”
Copsey’s big breakthrough season came in 1990-91 when he established himself as a regular with his lineout work and combative edge. That’s when the idea he might be able to make it onto the international stage began to take hold.
“I was having really good games in a fantastic Llanelli team. But it was very much the 1991 Welsh Cup final that was the big one. We played Pontypool on a beautiful sunny day at the stadium in Cardiff. We won really well and I played well. Rupert Moon beat me for Man of the Match by one vote, the b ***** d!
“At times like that, it sort of dawns on you that you could do it. I was thinking, ‘Actually, I could crack this’.”
Others were thinking the same.
“When Wales went to Australia in the summer of 1991, they were really keen for me to go on that tour, but I hadn’t quite qualified,” he reveals.
“It was that classic of, ‘If you don’t say anything, we won’t’, but I said I needed to qualify. I probably did myself a favour there because it wasn’t a great tour in the end!”
Copsey’s growing reputation saw him called up for the Barbarians’ autumn tour in September 1991, including a match against a Scotland XV when he lined up alongside the likes of Pierre Berbizier, Stuart Barnes, Tommy Lawton, Eric Rush and Tony Underwood. By now, it wasn’t just Wales taking notice.
“At the end of that year, I actually got picked for the England squad and the Welsh squad at the same time,” he recalls. “That was the time I had to choose which side of the fence I was going to jump for.
“I suppose the obvious easier route at the time was Wales because of the second rows in England. You had Martin Bayfield, Wade Dooley, Paul
Ackford, with Martin Johnson just coming on the scene. So they had a raft of really good players, whereas Wales not so much.
“But, hand on heart, I didn’t really consider it that way. I had been part of the London Division squad the season before and I just didn’t get on with it. I really didn’t enjoy it at all, whereas I was absolutely loving my rugby in Wales.
“For me, being from a state school and a working class background, it just suited my DNA so much. Llanelli, as a club, that whole thing, I absolutely fell in love with it. That’s the only way to describe it. I loved every minute of it. I pinched myself daily that I was part of that team.
“So, for me, it was one of the easiest decisions of my life. It was just about grabbing an opportunity with both hands.”
Having completed a six-year residency qualification, Copsey was chosen to make his Wales debut away to Ireland in the opening match of the 1992 Five Nations. It was to be a notorious entrance, as he punched his opposite number Neil Francis, with only the persuasive powers of Wales captain Ieuan Evans keeping him on the pitch.
“It could have been the shortest international career ever!” he says. “It was just, ‘Jeez, how did I get away with that?’ I am eternally grateful to Ieuan for his diplomatic skills.”
Copsey was to start all four matches in that year’s Five Nations, proudly belting out Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau before each one.
“I had some really good friends, very fluent Welsh speakers, who taught me the anthem. I started off phonetically because my command of languages is not great. Speaking English is hard enough!
“Things like that were extremely important to me to show where my colours were firmly nailed and that I was very much committed to the cause.
“I was at the Ireland match in Cardiff a few weeks ago and still belting it out. I can’t say mine is the most tuneful rendition, but a big part of being in the Welsh set-up is that pride. It’s a marvellous thing.”
Having shared in Llanelli’s victory over world champions Australia in November 1992, Copsey was chosen for Wales’ opening game of the 1993 Five Nations at home to England. He had played in the 24-0 defeat at Twickenham the season before, so there was a score to settle, with his background making the fixture all the more significant.
“When you are in that situation where you have chosen Wales over England, most people say, ‘You took the easy route, you got your cap, well done’, sort of thing.
“That was very much at the forefront of my mind that I was trying to prove my worth. It was a very personal thing. It was about trying to raise my game and get England’s scalp. So I was pretty pumped up for that game in 1993, absolutely. I remember it like yesterday.”
In particular, Copsey recalls the passionate atmosphere within the old national ground at the Arms Park.
“It always seems like you are playing with an extra man when you are in Cardiff anyway and you really are taken on that wave. But, for Wales, England is a big, big game. It always has been and always will be. It’s the classic thing that it’s the old enemy and I don’t think that has dwindled one iota.”
Pretty much no-one gave Wales a chance going into the 1993 fixture, as Copsey recalls.
“England had won back-to-back Grand Slams and beaten France on the first weekend when we didn’t have a game. They were head and shoulders above the rest and, coming into that game in Cardiff, they were very much the stand-out favourites.
“But Alan Davies did a great job making the team believe, ‘Look, we can win this’. That was drummed into us. We prepared really well and were really up for it that day, very much so. We certainly came out firing.”
It was to prove an attritional contest. “When you actually look back at that game, it wasn’t the best. It wasn’t easy on the eye, put it that way!”
I was an English lad playing in the most Welsh of clubs, with Welsh language calls at the lineout. But because I played for their club, I was accepted ... there was never a problem, never an issue