Matt Dawson: Nine Lives

At the end of August 1991 I was invited to join Northampton Rugby Club. I accepted, and this marked the point at which my relationship with my parents changed. Up until then they were my support group; any problems I had, I turned to them. But at Northampton I met Keith Barwell, a wealthy local businessman, and he took me under his wing.

Northampton had approached me after seeing me play at scrum-half for England 18 Group against France at Franklin’s Gardens in April. When I returned from a tour to New Zealand with Marlow, it was to a message from Saints’ youth-team coach Keith Picton asking me to call him. I had already had a look at Wasps and there had been interest in me shown by Harlequins and Saracens, but I liked what I saw at Northampton.

Within weeks I was an 18-year-old commuting to the East Midlands to play for Saints under-19s. It was an expensive business, but Keith sorted me out with a job, working as a security guard for one of his companies, Firm Security. I was what is known in the trade as a ‘flyer’, which meant I had to be ready at the drop of a hat to go anywhere and offer security back-up. For example, one evening they phoned me up to say I was needed in Worcester by 10 o’clock the following morning to patrol Littlewoods.

Keith and my parents have since become the best of friends, but after I moved up to Northampton in January 1992 Mum and Dad felt a little bit left out. An awful lot of things were being sorted out for me by Keith during this period, things which parents would ordinarily do, like helping to arrange mortgages. My new place was about an hour and a half from home, which I didn’t think was all that far, but as far as Mum and Dad were concerned I could have been on the moon.

By August of that year I had moved into the head office of Firm Security and was being paid £10,000 a year. I stayed there until September 1993, when I went to work for the Milton Keynes Herald, another of Keith’s interests, selling £15 adverts over the telephone. From there it was on to a career of sorts in teaching, a fact that will amuse my tutors at RGS who wrote me off as intellectually challenged. At the time I was sharing a house with clubmate Brett Taylor, and he was teaching at Spratton Hall prep school in Northampton. I had spent a lot of time at RGS coaching junior teams, so when an opportunity came up to help out with PE lessons and generally to be an odd-job man around the school, I jumped at it. It was obviously good for the school to have me around for the rugby and PE, but I was keen to do more, so they allowed me to teach basic geography and maths to kids up to the age of 10. I surprised myself with how smoothly it went. I got on well with the kids, made them understand the subjects and found it easy to teach them.

I was at my happiest, however, when I was outside, and one summer I was asked to strip the paint off all the school’s football and rugby posts, sand them down and then rust-coat and paint them. Many saw it as a thankless task as it was a three-week job, but the weather was gorgeous. I finished it in two months, and I’ve never been so tanned.

Brett and I, known as the ‘terrible twosome’ (or ‘pretty boys’ to Keith Barwell), were very sporty and quite fit and athletic with all the training we did. As soon as the first ray of sunshine appeared we would be out in our shorts and sleeveless T-shirts to volunteer for car-park duty. It was no chore at all. You wouldn’t believe how many mothers turned up in open-top cars, fully made up and wearing short little skirts. We of course thought we were God’s gifts to the world.

Nothing altered that view when we were roped into taking part in the summer production of a Victorian music-hall show. Our particular scene required us to pretend to be two weight-lifters, complete with big moustaches and all-in-one leotards, lifting black balloons disguised as cannonballs on the end of a weight bar. Half an hour before we were due on stage we pumped ourselves up with circuit weights and clap press-ups in the dressing room, and then covered ourselves in bronzing lotion and got fully oiled up. The looks we got from the mums as we took off our dressing gowns on stage in the music hall were truly memorable.

Life was good for me in the early 1990s, and it was about to get a whole lot better.

Defence in football, midfield in rugby. That seemed to be my fate when, after joining Saints as a scrum-half, coach Glen Ross picked me at centre. Having been selected for the bench as a scrum-half for a second-team game, I’d come on in the centre and scored a couple of tries. Before I knew it I was in the first team, making my debut at Gloucester and playing quite well in a Northampton victory.

That night, I went out with Ian Hunter and Brett Taylor and got so wrecked that I ended up sleeping in the wardrobe of a room in the Richmond Hill Hotel. The next morning I woke with a very stiff neck and rushed out to get the papers, expecting huge ‘Dawson is fantastic’ type headlines. I was rather taken aback to find no such thing. The only reference to me in any of the reports was that I had missed a 22-man overlap! But the England selectors took a more positive view, and picked me to represent the under-21 team at centre for the game against the French Armed Forces. Kyran Bracken was scrum-half that day, but this time I did make the headlines, snatching the draw by scoring and converting a last-gasp try.

I still saw my future in the game as a scrum-half though, and that summer Glen Ross set me up with a spell in his native New Zealand, playing scrum-half for a club called Te Awamutu in Waikato. I spent my first two weeks living with Glen at his place in Hamilton; then, once I’d found my feet, I moved on to a farm deep in Waikato country which was owned by Te Awamutu coach John Sicilly. Also staying on the farm were two Scots boys from Melrose, Rob Hule and Stewart Brown, and together we just had the greatest time. Every day would be spent driving quad bikes up the mountain and then erecting fences. We had this big ram hammer with which to drive in the fence posts, but I was barely strong enough to pick it up let alone ram it down.

After a couple of weeks our job descriptions changed from fence erectors to tree surgeons. John needed all his pine trees trimmed, explaining that while the top third has to be branches and leaves, the second third has to be clean so that when it gets cut there are no knots in the wood. He then sent three muppets into the forest and left us to get on with it. Ladders against trees, taking no safety precautions at all, we took massive saws and secateurs up into the branches with us. It was extremely dangerous, and every quarter of an hour or so one of us would fall a good 20 feet to the ground. But there were no serious injuries, and as the days turned into weeks my body got stronger.

Life on a farm at the end of a long single-track road miles away from civilization was simple but wickedly good. One day the three of us were driving home with John and he got to a corner where he knew there would be wild turkeys sitting on the fence. On went the headlights, the turkeys froze in the beam, and out got John with a crowbar. The next day we were instructed to dunk the carcasses in water and pluck them.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Try plucking one without wetting it first,’ came the reply.

I did, and within seconds there were feathers absolutely everywhere. By the time we’d finished plucking this turkey, John’s front lawn was obliterated. The wind had picked up and blown the feathers all over his house too.

‘Wet them and they stick. You can then grab them and throw them in a bag,’ he explained. ‘Got it?’

We stayed on that farm for a month, the three of us living in a little annexe. After that we moved into a house in town and went from one labour job to another. We laid a resin concrete floor in a factory one day, landscaped a garden on another. No two days were the same.

All the while I was developing as a rugby player in general and as a scrum-half in particular. I learned some hard rugby lessons in New Zealand, the most important of them never to make the same mistake twice. New Zealanders are passionate rugby people and they want you to do well, but they are very unforgiving. If you make a mistake, they’ll tell you all about it.

When Te Awamutu failed to make the end-of-season playoffs I said my goodbyes, but not before meeting up in Hamilton with the touring England B squad. I also took the opportunity to hook up with Wayne Shelford, the former All Blacks captain who was playing for Northampton but had flown home during the off-season. We went to the B Test together at Rugby Park and an amazing thing happened. As we walked into the stand and up to our seats the whole place stopped to look at Buck. Talk about a national icon.

No rugby player has impressed me more than Buck. I have played rugby with some hard men, but Buck was in a league of his own, to the point of being slightly mental. He came into the changing room one day at Northampton with really long hair tied in a ponytail, having vowed not to get it cut until Phil Pask’s wife Janice had given birth. He was late for the pre-match meet and in a hurry. He took off his shirt to change into a training top, and we saw that his back and arms were covered in scars. There must have been hundreds of them, each with a couple of stitches in. He explained that that morning he had been to hospital to have surgically removed all the bits of gristle and scar tissue that had built up over the years of his playing career. His back was like a bloody road map. It was horrendous. He then put his shirt on and went out and played.

Another time Buck played in a game against Rugby where he got the most almighty shoeing – real proper stuff in the days when a player would really get it if he was on the wrong side of a ruck. Most people would have got up and started throwing punches, but Buck just clambered to his feet, looked at the fella with the guilty feet and smiled. I swear the guy shat himself. We didn’t see him for the rest of the game. We knew Buck was just biding his time until opportunity knocked, and so did he.

That stay in New Zealand was a crucial time for me, because when I got back to England my scrum-half apprenticeship was complete. I was selected by the Midlands at number 9 and was set on a course which would soon lead me to a place on the full England bench and a World Cup winner’s medal.

‘England,’ said Andy ‘Prince’ Harriman, ‘were a scratch side who hadn’t played together before, an unknown quantity even to ourselves.’ Then he went off to collect the Melrose Cup as captain of the winning side of the inaugural World Cup Sevens. The day was 18 April 1993, and according to those present at Murrayfield, at the time the half-built home of Scottish rugby, it should be remembered as one of the greatest in English rugby. Not only was I there, I was a member of the triumphant squad.

Over the course of three extraordinary days that April the 10-man England squad lived out a Cinderella-style fantasy. Unloved and unrated, we took on the world’s best in a format of rugby barely recognized by the powers-that-be at Twickenham and came out on top. We had been given so little chance by the Rugby Football Union that they hadn’t considered it worth sending us to the Hong Kong Sevens beforehand. Unlike Scotland, who had warmed up for the tournament by globetrotting around the sevens circuit and promptly fell at the first hurdle, we just turned up in Edinburgh that spring. I wouldn’t say that we gave ourselves as little chance of winning as everyone else, but it did start out as a bit of a jolly – until it dawned on us that we were actually good enough to go all the way.

To this day, few people remember who played for England in that tournament, other than Andy Harriman and maybe Lawrence Dallaglio. It was not that we had a weak squad, because we didn’t, despite the fact that only Prince and Tim Rodber had been capped. It was more that we had relatively little experience of sevens at the very highest level. I had made the squad because I was naturally fit and could keep running all day. I could also play anywhere in the back line, as well as kick goals. Nick Beal, Ade Adebayo, Dave Scully, Chris Sheasby, Justyn Cassell and Damian Hopley completed our squad, and we were put up in the George Hotel in Edinburgh, which was the nicest hotel I had ever stayed in. I shared a room with Hoppers. There was a Playstation plugged into the television, we had all our laundry paid for, and we ate some lovely seafood. I was there for the ride really, a wide-eyed 20-year-old not really able to believe that I was playing for my country in a World Cup.

In the days preceding the tournament all the other teams seemed to be locked into the sevens mentality. We were more likely to be locked in bars. We had a bit of a tour mentality, and that was how we bonded, from the first evening when Prince declared, ‘Right, boys, we’re going out to have a good night.’ A good night? It was carnage. But when we eventually woke some time the next day we were all mates. Then, all of a sudden, we were a really good team.

In Prince we had the fastest man in the tournament and, as it turned out, its outstanding player. He was extraordinary in every way. Our training drill was one-on-one over five and ten metres, trying to step your man. Andy would be skinning people. It was phenomenal. You just couldn’t catch him. He was more elusive than Jason Robinson. Jason has very small steps, but Harriman was bang, bang, gone – big steps like Iain Balshaw, very explosive and powerful. Awesome, actually.

After the first and second days we started to believe. Drawn in Group D, we made light work of Hong Kong (40–5), Spain (31–0), Canada (33–0) and Namibia (24–5) with me playing in all but the Canada game. We lost to Western Samoa (10–28), who had come into the tournament on the back of winning the Hong Kong Sevens for the first time, but still went through to the quarter-finals, which were contested in two round-robin groups of four. We were drawn in Group 2 with New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, while Western Samoa joined Ireland, Fiji and Tonga in Group 1.

The Samoans surprisingly lost two of their three matches, the Irish pulling off a major shock by beating them 17–0 before Fiji edged them 14–12 to put the tournament favourites out. No such problems for England: we began the second phase by scoring three tries against New Zealand in the first seven minutes, through Harriman, Scully and Beal, and won the game 21–12. Against South Africa we had to come from behind following Chester Williams’s early score for the Boks, but managed it with Prince and then Hoppers crossing and Bealer converting for a 14–7 win. When the Aussies were wiped out 42–0 by New Zealand in their last game before we met them, conceding six tries in the process, the omens looked promising, but against us David Campese escaped for an early try and the Wallabies led by 14 points before we got on the scoreboard. Despite tries by Justyn Cassell and Dave Scully, we went down 12–21.

Annoyed at a result which meant Australia topped the group even though we’d both finished on seven points, we went into our semi-final with Fiji determined to regain our momentum. We decided to introduce some real physicality, and to get hard with it. Sheasby, Rodders, Hoppers and Lawrence outscrummaged the Fijians from the outset and they didn’t really react to it. We started to press them and put them under pressure, and opened up a 14–7 lead through tries by Prince and Lawrence. Fiji came back at us and threatened to draw level when Rasari went on the charge, but Dave Scully planted a spectacular tackle on the big man which knocked him backwards. The ball sprang loose and Ade put Prince away for the try which settled the issue in our favour (21–7). Dave was awarded the Moment of the Tournament for that tackle, and he deserved it.

That said, it could have gone to Andy Harriman for his opening try in the final against Australia, who had come so close to losing to Ireland in their semi before stealing victory in the last move of the match through a try by Willie Ofahengaue. Prince absolutely flew past Campo and his mates as if they were wading in treacle. It was his twelfth try of the tournament which, not surprisingly, made him top try scorer.

I was not involved in the final; instead, I played the role of cheerleader on the sidelines. And there was much to shout about as tries by Lawrence and Rodders, who outran Campo to score under the posts, extended the England lead to 21 points before half-time. It seemed too good to be true and, sure enough, the Aussies powered back after the break, scoring three tries as our legs went. Critically, though, Nick Beal had converted all three England tries, whereas Michael Lynagh managed only one for the Wallabies. After a frantic final minute in which they threatened our line again, the whistle brought blessed relief, and the small matter of a World Cup winner’s medal.

2 Losing Ground

Anything and everything seemed possible when I returned from Edinburgh in triumph with the Magnificent Seven. I was even talked about in some quarters as a candidate for the forthcoming Lions tour to New Zealand. I had never even heard of the Lions. As it turned out, that summer of 1993 I was named in the England A squad to tour Canada, and I flew out to Vancouver as first choice ahead of Kyran Bracken. With 16 Englishmen on Lions duty, including scrum-half Dewi Morris, it was an opportunity to really put my name in the frame. It turned into a nightmare.

The tour opener was a game against British Columbia in Victoria. Ahead of us were four further fixtures including two non-cap Tests, and if things went well there was always the possibility of a call-up to join the Lions (as happened to Martin Johnson when Wade Dooley came home early following the death of his father). But things did not go well. Not for me, at any rate. I had felt a hamstring twinge in training before the first game, and we were only 10 minutes in when it tore and my tour was over. Worse still, Kyran took full advantage. Although England went on to lose the first ‘Test’, they bounced back to tie the series, and Rothmans Rugby Union Yearbook was in no doubt who was responsible. Its tour review read: ‘Kyran Bracken was the only tourist who really enhanced a claim for a full international place. In the chase for Dewi Morris’s scrum-half shirt he leapfrogged Matt Dawson. Bracken’s distribution and vision in the second international definitely gave the tourists the necessary edge to tie the series.’

At the time I didn’t think too much of it. I still thought I was the bee’s knees. I returned to Northampton with Tim Rodber, whose tour had also been cut short by a wrecked hamstring, and we had a cracking time for the rest of that summer, playing golf and drinking beer. Only later did I really look back on that period as a missed opportunity. It could have been a big turning point in my career; instead, it proved to be exactly that for Kyran as his really took off.

Kyran had been to university and had done the ‘wild’ phase I was now in, so while I was forever thinking about which mate at which university I could go and visit next, he was far more tuned in to the rugby. On his return from Canada he was sent to Australia to join up with the England under-21 tour. Kyran went straight into the ‘Test’ team and scored two of England’s three tries in a 22–12 win over Australia. There was now no stopping him. A few months later, when the South-West narrowly lost out to the touring All Blacks at Redruth, he again caught the eye, and when he followed that up with another smart display for England A against the same opposition seven days later the selectors knew he was ready to step up. What they didn’t know, however, was that Dewi Morris would be forced out of the Test team to face New Zealand on 27 November 1993 with a bout of flu after he had been named in the starting line-up. As the next in line, Kyran was handed his full international debut. I was summoned on to the replacements’ bench for the first time, but by now there was clear daylight between the two of us in the rankings. I was still talking a good game, but I was half the player I had been earlier in the year. I was away with the fairies and I didn’t really understand why.

Kyran enjoyed a startling England debut. It had everything, including an England win over an All Blacks side that had gone into the game as 1/6 favourites. Kyran had his ankle stamped on after just two minutes by New Zealand flanker Jamie Joseph but refused to come off, ending the day on crutches as one of the heroes of the 15–9 triumph. Afterwards his profile was massive. All of a sudden, from having been in the box seat months earlier, I watched him sail over the horizon. He was a big star, appearing on the Big Breakfast and being pictured in the newspapers walking out of a hotel with his girlfriend. I thought, ‘Holy shit, what about me?’ Kyran was the only show in town, and it hurt. I felt that the number 9 shirt should be mine and that I should be getting all the attention. I was still a young lad and I just didn’t know how to react. Rather than earn it, I wanted it given to me. It was just an immaturity within me. I had a lot of work to do to get the shirt back, but I didn’t know how to go about it. I tried to get on with playing rugby but I couldn’t find any form. I tried to force everything, lost my way, and ended up getting dropped by the club.

And yet I’d come within a whisker of winning my first cap at the age of 21 against the All Blacks. From the moment Joseph’s boot had come down on Kyran’s ankle I’d thought I was on. I’d warmed up for the whole bloody game expecting Kyran to hobble off any minute. There is no way in this day and age he would or could have carried on; the instruction would have come down to ‘get him off’. But that day there was no budging him, even though when he did come off the pitch he was on crutches for months afterwards. At the time, I didn’t understand why he had been so obstinate, why he’d showed so much doggedness and determination. Only later did I come to appreciate what an outstanding effort it was. It was Kyran’s way of saying, ‘This is my shirt and I’m not giving it up.’ I don’t know whether he realized the sort of precedent he was setting for us both, but from that day on I knew he was going to be a major factor in my career.

It was probably a blessing in disguise that Kyran did not leave the field that day at Twickenham because I now know I wasn’t ready, in the same way that I can now admit to myself that for two years, until December 1995, when I finally made my full debut, I thought I was a lot better than I was. The season before that All Blacks match I was flying, really flying, but then I started to believe my own publicity. Even when I came back from Canada early I consoled myself with the thought that I was still the best scrum-half around. I simply didn’t realize how much work was needed. I am naturally a confident sort of person, fortunate to have been born with great self-belief. But there was probably too much an element of arrogance in my make-up when I was younger. I didn’t get the balance right.

That was how I was in 1993, riding on the seat of my pants, giving thought to only what was right in front of my eyes. So when England called me on to the bench for the New Zealand game I took it all in my stride. I wasn’t particularly nervous, because in those days you never saw a replacement unless there was a major injury, so I didn’t expect to play. I joined up with the squad on the Thursday and didn’t know any of the moves. On Friday there was a light team run. I think I probably had 30 seconds’ running, one scrum and one lineout. That was it. But so what? It wasn’t as though Kyran was going to get injured.

Come the day, cue Jamie Joseph and the instruction from England coach Dick Best to me to go down and warm up.

‘You know the moves, right, Daws?’

‘Dick, I don’t know any moves, or any calls. What’s going on?’

It would have been laughable had it not been so serious. There I was, sitting in the tunnel with Dick Best, and he was telling me the lineout calls. I was totally crapping myself. I did some stretches and nervously laughed to myself.

‘I haven’t got a clue here, Dick. I haven’t got a clue what’s going on here, mate.’