Absolute legend
Record-breaking Wales superstar Sam announces shock retirement at 29
IT was an unusually busy day in the Tenovus Cancer Care charity shop in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, on July 28, 2017.
Among the customary knitwear, floral ornaments and shelves of dusty autobiographies sat a black, green and red holdall with a single word stitched into the top in white: Warburton.
Inside and around it was the entirety of the training kit and offfield clothing given to members of that year’s British and Irish Lions squad. In retail terms, it was estimated to be worth around £2,500.
Except this wasn’t kit that money could buy. It was the personalised property of the man who’d just returned from New Zealand with his record intact as having never lost a Lions Test series as captain.
And here he was giving it all away to his local charity shop – just as he had after the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and just as he had with garment after garment of Cardiff Blues kit over the years.
A simple gesture, free of publicity, signalled only by a simple tweet from the man himself of him and his stash sitting outside the shop.
In many ways, it’s the archetypal Sam Warburton story: a thoughtful and considerate man handing over the rewards of his outstanding sporting talent for the good of his home community.
If that sounds saccharine and cloying, then I make no apology, because let me say this: as a rugby player, leader, role model and ambassador, Sam Warburton has few if any peers. He’s a once-in-a-generation individual, and we should feel privileged that he’s Welsh. There’ll be other world-class opensides (in fact, there already are), but there won’t be another Sam Warburton.
Warburton was just six years old when rugby cleared the way to start paying players, and yet he’s done as much as anyone to bring the level of professionalism to rugby in Wales that’s long been present in many other sports.
His rapid ascendancy from the fringes of the national squad to its captaincy as we approached the 2011 Rugby World Cup felt like a genuine generational shift in the Welsh game. Swept aside was the prevalent work hard-play hard culture of the recent past. In its place, led by Warburton, was ushered in an atmosphere of physical endeavour, of sacrifice, of an uncompromising approach to maximising one’s athletic potential.
Where his predecessors may have boasted of boozy tour escapades and post-match sessions, the level of excess featured in Warburton’s interviews of the time extended to enjoying a late-night protein bar and cup of tea with his room-mate Dan Lydiate, while they talked about tractors and watched The Weakest Link.
Twee maybe, but the unrelenting focus on physical performance created shockwaves at the tournament in New Zealand, as a Welsh team largely in their inspirational captain’s image swept their way to the brink of the final.
That it should be their captain’s misfortune in being sent off for a mistimed tackle on Vincent Clerc that ultimately cost this outstanding young side a historic place in the final was the cruellest irony.
Yet much can be learned from Warburton’s reaction to that incident, even as a young man learning what it was to feel the weight of the nation on his shoulders. There would be no histrionics or fuming aggression. Simply his jersey pulled up over his face for the briefest of moments while he restored his composure amid the most gut-wrenching despair, before he took his place – red-eyed but controlled – back on the Welsh bench.
When Warburton’s career history is written, it will be as an inspirational captain that he is likely to be remembered. And it will be warranted. This is a man given the exceedingly rare honour of leading the Lions not once, but twice, most significantly on account of the respect he would immediately command from those he encountered. Not because of a tendency to rant or rave, throw furniture or lead with fear, but because he knew exactly when he should speak, and exactly what he should say when he did.
He was a captain who inspired performance more than demanded it. Few could fail to be impressed by him, be it opposition players, foreign media or, famously, referees. Name another individual who might have succeeded, like Warburton did, in getting that infamous last-minute penalty overturned in the final 2017 Lions Test. You’ll struggle.
So an outstanding leader, yes. But history will be wrong to overlook – as so many do – Warburton’s worldclass ability as a player. In sport, there are players whose reputations seem to be enhanced by their absence, and those whose standings seem to shrink. In the past few years for Wales, Warburton has seemed to fall into the latter category. I’ve never understood it.
Quick, strong, technically excellent over the ball, a brutal tackler, skilled ball handler and thoroughly fearless, the absence of a fully-fit Warburton from the Wales pack would almost always bring with it a downgrade in the ferocity of its breakdown work. Justin Tipuric’s running and passing may have caught the eye in that famous 30-3 win over England in 2013, but for me that game was Warburton’s masterpiece. It might only have been 9-3 at half-time, but England had been beaten up by Wales. And it was Sam Warburton at the heart of that physical dominance.
Tragically we’ve been robbed of so many opportunities to see that type of physical feat repeated by the injuries that have ravaged this young man’s body over the course of his career. I’ll leave the assessment of what’s caused him to suffer so acutely to those more qualified in that area than me.
But it’s hard to escape the sense that this was a player whose sheer commitment to the cause has been more than his body could take.
Happily for Warburton, I couldn’t be more convinced that he’ll be a success in whatever he does after rugby. Witness him talking to school children in Cardiff last year about the importance of maintaining a healthy approach to body image for an example of his emotional intelligence. Or see the articulate and insightful contribution he brought to his role as a BBC pundit in this year’s Six Nations to as evidence of a razorsharp analytical mind.
But whatever Sam Warburton does next, and his options are seemingly endless, we should remember him as one of Welsh rugby’s true greats – an image that will only become clearer as we gain the increasing benefit of hindsight.