Is aiming for a big 2018
would suffer. It was close to being an obsessive compulsive disorder in a sporting context.
“I definitely had OCD on the day of a game,” he says.
“I had a routine that I had to stick by.
“The psychologist said: ‘Why don’t you just drop it?’
“The analogy she used was of a guy walking down the street waving his hands in the air. A stranger goes up to him and asks what he’s doing.
“‘I’m trying to keep the dragons away’, the bloke replies. “The woman says back to him: ‘There are no dragons there’. The bloke replies: ‘Exactly’. “It was a great way of highlighting that these rituals are all a bit pointless, that they don’t change the situation one bit. “The psychologist asked me what I thought would happen if I did things differently on game day. “My big concern was the lineout and whether that would suffer if I changed anything. “But I dropped all the routines for the Munster match in December on the understanding that we’d see how it panned out. The psychologist said if the worst happened and the match proved a complete disaster for me then we’d know I’d been right to have been doing all those things. “It didn’t and I’ve been building ever since.”
STRENGTH IN ADVERSITY
CREDIT Baldwin. He could have simply accepted that he’d had his time in the sun; instead, he used the lion-bite affair and being dropped by Wales to re-evaluate himself and his game.
“The whole incident in South Africa and then not being selected by Wales for the autumn gave me the kick up the backside that I needed,” he says.
“For the past 12 to 18 months I haven’t been where I’d wanted to be on a personal level, so it’s been nice to go forward again.
“How did it feel when the Wales squad was announced for the autumn and I wasn’t in it?
“It probably didn’t kick in until the day of the first game.
“It was gut-wrenching to be watching from the outside.
“I wanted the boys to do well, but that feeling of not being there isn’t one I want to have at this stage of my career.
“I’ve gone back to focusing on the four basics of the game for a front rower, namely ball-carrying, tackling, scrum and line-out.
“When you get those four right, the rest takes care of itself.
“It’s definitely an ambition to be involved in the next World Cup, but it won’t happen unless I’m performing week-in, week-out for the Ospreys and catching the eyes of the people who select the squads.”
CARDIFF BLUES AND MATTHEW REES
THE Ospreys host Cardiff Blues on Saturday afternoon and will be looking to build on their 22-9 win over the Dragons.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” says Baldwin.
“The Scarlets is a massive derby, but, for me, coming from Bridgend, I think Cardiff and the Ospreys is huge, too.
“They went well against the Scarlets on New Year’s Eve and have some old heads like Matthew Rees in that pack.
“I remember watching Matthew playing for the 2009 Lions and at the time he was probably the best hooker in the world. He’s one of the best scrummagers I’ve played against and this season he has rolled back the years.”
He continues: “The last-play loss against the Scarlets on Boxing Day was probably the lowest I have felt after a regional match, because we’d put so much effort into it.
“But it’s about playing to the final whistle.”
Whatever, Baldwin responded with a man-of-the-match effort against the Dragons.
It was yet another indication that for the former Bridgend player, 201718 might yet be remembered for much more than just a lion bite.