THE NO-NONSENSE WORLD OF PAUL JAMES
Ex-rugby star on the night Henson got punched, his eye injury... and more
IT is 9.25am and the mercury on thermometers in Neath has started to climb. “It’s so hot the butter I’ve just bought has started to melt,” a bloke with a bag shouts over to two workmen, who are sitting on a wall, having presumably brought forward their mid-morning break.
Directions to Paul James’ bistro & bar in the town centre are sought.
As soon as James’ name is mentioned, one local snaps into respect mode and maps out the route you need to be taking. In fact, he takes a slight detour to point out the exact street where the cafe/bar is located. “Paul’s place is there,” he says. The former Neath and Wales prop, who still plays for the Ospreys, is a highly regarded figure in these parts.
The place in question is called Ten21 Bistro & Bar and it is shaping up to be James’ life after he finishes playing. He runs it with his wife Louise; their chef is James’ childhood pal, Stuart Woodhouse.
It is busy on the morning I call, but James sorts out a table and orders two coffees, a white one for himself and a black one for this writer.
Assessing the scene after our photographer arrives, a silver-haired chap enjoying breakfast in the corner asks: “BBC, is it?”
Well, not really.
Not that it would matter to James who was interviewing him. What you see is what you get with him. As straight as an arrow, totally dependable and refreshingly honest.
Six years after his first cap, Warren Gatland summoned him for his second.
The catch was that it was against New Zealand. Oh, and James was playing out of position at tight-head prop instead of in the loose-head role he favours.
But James took his chance. Wales won all their own scrums and stole one against the head.
He went on to play 66 times for his country and would have picked up many more starts had he not had the misfortune to be playing at the same time as Gethin Jenkins.
But at 36 he is thinking of his future and this airy, modern bistro is where it is at.
“Opening something like this is something me and Louise have always thought about,” he says.
“As soon as we moved back home, Louise said she wanted to go back to work and so then it was about looking around and setting our own place up.
“Did we seek advice on it before we started? Not really. We had the keys, came in with a sledgehammer and ripped the old place out.
“It’s hard work, but there’s a big social dimension to it. On my days off, I’ll come in here and work, but I enjoy it. I work the bar at the weekend.”
Some sports people are wary of press interviews, but James has seen a lot over the years and anxiety over mere scribblers isn’t part of his default setting. His wife takes time out from serving and running the show at Ten21 to join the interview, just in time to hear her husband explaining how they came up with the name. “We were thinking of what other cafes were called, but we wanted something different, so I said: ‘What about my cap number?’ “And there it was.”
James has been playing senior rugby since 2001, which underlines his durability.
He was there on the first night a Welsh region ever played, featuring for the Ospreys against Ulster at The Gnoll. He was also there when the Ospreys won their league titles in 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2012 and when Wales won a Six Nations Grand Slam in 2012 and defended their title the following year.
And James was on the scene the night Gavin Henson was knocked out in a pub by his then Bath teammate Carl Fearns, with the incident filmed and quickly watched by pretty much the entire internet.
What happened? “Bath were sponsored by Thatchers and had a team day in an orchard field where they put up a big marquee for us and had a barbecue. Pretty much every cider you can imagine was there for us to drink if we wanted.
“So we sat there all day drinking. “There was an incident in the pub, but if someone hadn’t filmed it, it would never have got out.
“What happens in rugby is if someone has a few beers and pipes up a bit too much, you sort it out among yourselves.
“That’s all Fearnsie did – he gave Gav a six-inch punch and it was goodnight, Irene.
“Gav is Gav. We look back and laugh at it.
“He was sketchy the following morning.
“Fearnsie just gave him a clip because he stepped out of line and that’s it. Job done. End of.
“Gav probably wouldn’t give lip to Fearnsie again, but then neither would any of the other boys after that punch.”
James hasn’t ruled out a post-playing career in specialist coaching.
He has worked at Skewen and also at Neath.
He has set-piece expertise, in particular, and feels he may be able to offer something.
Certainly he has worked under some excellent coaches, including Steve Hansen and Warren Gatland.
But he says the most rugby intelligent coach he has come across is a Welshman.
“Lyn Jones was coaching the Ospreys things 10 years ago that many coaches are coaching now. He was way ahead of anyone else. “He used to think outside the box. “He is the best rugby brain I worked under and he gave an opportunity as a kid.
“Why is he not Wales coach? He’s a maverick. He comes in here all the time. I was sitting in the window the other day, having some food. Lyn just walked in off the street, grabbed a fork, took a bite to eat and went: ‘This coleslaw’s the best around’. “He then walked back out. “That’s Lyn.
“He probably had the same way of doing things on a rugby field.
“Maybe the way he does things might rub certain people up the wrong way.
“But he’s an outstanding rugby person.”
James continues: “The best technical and scrummaging coach I played under was Neil Hatley at Bath, someone who brought me on leaps and bounds as a player, and Gary Gold was good as well.
“What every player wants from a coach is honesty and Gary gave you that.
“I remember on my second day there he said he wanted to see all the loose-heads.
“He then sat us down and said: ‘You’re first choice, you’re second choice, you’re third choice and you’re fourth choice. That’s how it stands at the moment. If you want to be first choice, you need to be working harder than him’. I was sitting there open-mouthed, because a player doesn’t come across such brutal honesty that often.”
What choice was James? “I was first. But when he said that I thought: ‘S**t. I had better up my game here, otherwise I’ll be overtaken’.
“It worked because everyone was striving to be number one.
“Toby Booth and Mike Ford were good as well.”
What sets Gatland and Hansen apart?
And yet Hansen and Gatland are world leaders in their profession. What makes them special?
“They have the attitude that people simply have to work hard,” says James.
“The emphasis wasn’t always on skill but things that come free such as work-rate and fitness. You don’t have to be good to do stuff like that. You just need a good mental attitude. The mantra was: We want to be the fittest, we want to be the best.
“So they’d get every last drop out of you.
“Under Gats it was the hardest I’ve trained and probably the fittest I’ve ever been.
“But he gives people time off if they’re tired and is a good manmanager.
“That said, he might pick you out in front of everyone and say: ‘Someone in the press has been saying so-