Matt Dawson: Nine Lives

‘Don’t worry,’ said the coach of the England rugby team. ‘Just give it to Rob Andrew.’

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to my career had I got on the pitch that day. Never mind 50-plus England caps, I would have needed a miracle to win a second. I would have been toast. That said, after the way Kyran played that day, I thought my England career might be brown bread anyway.

The first lash caught me by surprise. I was not tensed, my body was relaxed. Then he hit me again, and I cried out. Blood poured down my legs as a gang of rugby players stood around me laughing.

It had always been a dream of mine to play for the Barbarians, probably more so even than for England, because they had such an aura about them. The history of the club, the players who had worn the shirt, the great games, The Try Gareth Edwards scored against the All Blacks in 1973. Everything seemed magical. As a youngster, my black and white hooped replica shirt was my pride and joy. I wore it everywhere.

But I will not play for the Barbarians again. Not after my experience in Zimbabwe in May and June 1994. Not after what happened on that tour. Not after being assaulted by a Welshman wielding a cactus leaf.

I was very much a social animal at the time. My attitude was that all my success in rugby was purely down to natural talent and I didn’t have to work at it. Despite having lost ground to Kyran Bracken in the previous 12 months I was still a World Cup winner enjoying life to the full. I had a prima donna attitude in training as well, basically thinking that because I’d got close to an England cap it was just going to happen for me sooner or later. Lording it about Northampton on nights out with pretty girls was pretty much par for the course. I had some wild times. I was 21 years old, so who could blame me? So when the invitation arrived from the Barbarians it sounded like another good crack with another good bunch of lads, as well as the chance to fulfil a lifelong ambition to wear the shirt. There was a club tour to Chicago scheduled for the end of the season, but that wasn’t even a consideration for me.

Not too many big names went on the tour. Neil Back, Richard Cockerill and Darren Garforth went from Leicester, but otherwise the squad was mainly composed of Welsh boys, really good lads. We played three games, beating Zimbabwe Goshawks 53–9 and Matabeleland 35–23, and losing to Zimbabwe 23–21 in Harare. But my memories are not of the rugby, nor of the sights and sounds of a country I had never before visited. Rather, they are of what I took at the time to be the ‘Barbarian way’. It was a case of old boys treating us like schoolchildren. And then at the end of the tour, to top it all off, we had a session ‘in court’ which was just horrendous.

Nick Beal, one of my best mates, was also on the tour and we spent quite a lot of time together. So of course we got fined for being mates.

‘Yeah, fair enough. I’ll down half a pint of tequila.’

But that wasn’t what they had in mind at all. I was told to take my trousers down, bend over a chair and prepare to be spanked by a massive cactus leaf.

‘What? What are you talking about?’

As the youngest player on tour I expected them to have a bit of fun at my expense, even if standing in front of the whole squad with my shorts round my ankles, leaning forward over a chair, preparing to be hit by a seriously spiky object, was not exactly what I had in mind. Still, Bealer played along with it and waved the leaf close to my backside. But that was not good enough for the others. They wanted pain. Derwyn Jones, the towering Cardiff and Wales second row, grabbed the leaf off Bealer and whacked my arse. The blow cut me, blood started to ooze from my cheeks, and I exploded in rage.

‘What the fucking hell do you think you’re doing?’

My backside was full of cactus splinters and it hurt like hell. And still the ordeal wasn’t over. It was now Nick’s turn to feel the pain.

‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no way I’m doing that. I’m the first to enjoy a bit of a giggle but no, I’m not having any of that.’

There and then I switched off. I lost interest in the Barbarians. I hadn’t minded the other stuff – the drinking games, and the Circle of Fire challenge where toilet paper is rolled up tight and you have to clench it between your bum cheeks, set a light to it and run around the room before the paper burns out. That was okay, but the cactus lark I thought was well out of order. I swore to myself there and then that I would never play again. If I was asked now, almost a decade later, my answer would still be no because I promised myself that I wouldn’t and I am a man of my word. Not only physically, but mentally I was scarred by that experience. It was very, very odd indeed. It upset me. They didn’t treat me with any respect at the time. Nick’s a little bit more forgiving, but then he didn’t get whacked so it’s easier for him to be that way. You don’t easily forgive or forget after having to lie on the bed in your hotel room while your mate pulls splinters out of your arse. I was angry, really mad. I had thought it would be good for a few photos, that everyone else would wet themselves, and that the cactus leaf would just skim my backside. But Derwyn, who was basically a good lad but due to his size was employed as ‘the enforcer’, got carried away. I didn’t want to show any pain but I couldn’t help it. There was blood running down my legs and onto my shorts.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when we got home it was a real battle to keep my Barbarians shirt. They wanted to take them all back. I couldn’t believe it. We didn’t receive a bean for going; the only reason I went was to get the shirt and to be able to say I had played for the Barbarians. I got one in the end, though, so at least I have a shirt to go with the memory.

Back in Northampton I wasted no time getting back into the swing of things, even if my backside was still too sore to plonk on a barstool. People were starting to recognize me around town, so it was always easy to be out, even on a Friday night before a game, when I would head to Aunty Ruth’s in town for a cup of coffee. But I was always out for out’s sake; my focus was not on rugby. Saturday night I would always go out to get hammered and just be a boy.

The game was still amateur in 1994, let’s not forget, and this sort of behaviour wasn’t particularly frowned upon. But, with hindsight, it hurt my career. England were preparing to change the guard at number 9; the selectors were looking for the player to take the scrum-half baton from Richard Hill and Dewi Morris and carry it into a new era. I had played in England’s two A-team victories over Italy and Ireland, yet Wasps’ Steve Bates was selected for the summer tour to South Africa. I was absolutely gutted. The alarm bells should have rung then. I should have realized that I obviously wasn’t good enough. Instead, I chose to believe it was the selectors who were at fault. Jack Rowell, the new England manager, had simply got it wrong.

Both my fitness and my attitude to rugby were slack. There was no structure to my training. I’d do a bit, but I was always naturally fit so I didn’t push myself. I was dogged and determined and brave, and because I’d cause a little bit of havoc at the base of the scrum, making breaks and scoring the odd individual try, I got more than my fair share of attention. I got away with it because I was still something of an unknown quantity, but that all changed in the 1994–95 season when the rest of the First Division wised up, saw that I wasn’t a bad player and decided to get on my case. I thought I could weather the storm, but I got battered. I was frequently injured and lost my form pretty quickly. Over the winter I needed someone in my life to say to me, ‘The 1995 World Cup is there for you if you really work at it,’ but I didn’t have a mentor on the playing side in that way until I’d formed a relationship with Ian McGeechan, who replaced Glen Ross as head coach and director of rugby at Northampton midway through the season.

I wasn’t alone at Northampton in being a prima donna; there were probably three or four of us who thought we were above it. Even to the point that we didn’t bother going to the final league game at West Hartlepool. I didn’t travel with the team; I played golf instead. I look back now and think it’s no bloody wonder we got relegated. It was a predicament all of our own making. We were a good-time club, cruising around town like big fish in a small pond. The alcohol-and-party lifestyle we led was symptomatic of an attitude problem which brought about our downfall. Because we thought we were too good to go down people failed to work on the little things which seemed minor but, when added together, amounted to a big problem. I know I didn’t work hard enough. We didn’t make sufficient effort with the supporters, or in training, or in preparation for a game. We just expected everything to happen. Nobody said how we were going to go about staying up in 1995, just that we would.

Our fate was sealed on the final day of the season when Harlequins won at Gloucester, which rendered irrelevant our victory over West Hartlepool. I saw the result in the clubhouse after finishing my round. Finally, the penny dropped.

There were a lot of very embarrassed people within the playing staff when we assembled for a meeting the following Monday, because there was no one else to blame other than ourselves. Ian McGeechan was scathing in his criticism. ‘You lot are living in a comfort zone,’ he said, and we were. It was too comfortable playing for Northampton. We had good crowds and good facilities, we were well known in the town, and we could get in as many bars as we liked. But, of course, when you’re in a comfort zone you don’t see it. It’s not until somebody comes along and points it out to you that you twig. After Geech had spoken it was the turn of club captain Tim Rodber to have his say. ‘This comfort zone disappears now and it never returns,’ he said. ‘None of us are going to walk away from this. We put the club in this mess and we are all going to get it out, right? We are going to blitz the Second Division. We are not going to lose a game. Right?’

A few days later I was sat at home, no longer so keen to go out given that the whole of the town seemed to be asking the same question (‘How the hell did you lot manage to get relegated, then?’), when the post arrived. It was my Saints’ end-of-season report, penned by coach Paul Larkin. ‘A very frustrating and eventful year you have had,’ he began.

Inevitably you must have suffered the full range of emotions, but there is always some consolation. After the previous season when you had supposedly suffered loss of form, you were able to concentrate your efforts in order that you regained your confidence as first-choice scrum-half. Frustrated with injury at least you were still able to achieve this. And despite injury, you were able to grab consolation with England A selections.

Next season you will have to contend with different problems, but if you are able to shrug off the injury doubts then you will be ready psychologically. I also feel that with Dewi Morris retiring from the England scene there is much to prove. Kyran Bracken may have the edge, but I feel that nothing is definite. You need to concentrate your efforts and work on your range of skills. That means non-stop passing practices prior to sessions and kicking drills. Because we are in the Second Division you will have to be at the top of your game to get the recognition.

Our gameplan will continue to expand next season. We must take on board the wider game through the hands; the mobility of our back row will legislate for any breakdown. You should be looking to snipe and penetrate from third, fourth and fifth phases etc. Inevitably you will be involved in the occasional back-row move to keep the opposition occupied.

The most important factor is that we are confident. Not complacent, but prepared to win through hard graft. Prepared to accept that the team will win the championship, not the individual. Prepared from the onset for every possibility.

Larkin ended his report with the words, ‘You have it all in your grasp.’

Little did I know, but in the early summer of 1995 I still had a place in England’s World Cup squad within my grasp. In March, on the same weekend that Kyran Bracken helped England to a 24–12 Five Nations victory over Scotland at Twickenham, I had been sent on a mission with England A to South Africa to check out the World Cup facilities in Durban. We played one match, against Natal, and I played the full 80 minutes in a 33–25 defeat at King’s Park. Although England opted for Dewi and Kyran as their World Cup scrum-halves, Kyran picked up an injury during the tournament which meant Jack Rowell needed to send for a replacement. I was next in line, but I was touring Australia and Fiji with England A. Jack’s Mayday call coincided with a game against Queensland during which I was boomed by a big Fijian centre and suffered major-league concussion, and as I was away at the races, so to speak, England were forced into a decision. With me out of the reckoning, they plumped for Andy Gomarsall, my understudy on the A tour.

Even though Andy would actually play no part in the tournament, I was beside myself when I heard. Fortunately that was not for a while, thanks to a combination of a friend’s sensitivity and a case of mistaken identity. Paul Grayson, my Northampton and England A half-back partner, had heard the news while I was under observation, suffering from impaired vision and various other side effects and thus unable to travel on to Melbourne with the rest of the squad. For the best part of a week he sat on it while I recuperated in Manly with Tim Stimpson, who had also left the tour having gone down with glandular fever. When we were given the all-clear by the doctors to fly home we headed for Sydney airport, only to discover that I was attempting to travel on Grays’s passport. I phoned him to say that he must have mine as I had his, and that I couldn’t leave the country. We then chewed the fat about rugby and about life, which gave him ample opportunity to say, ‘Oh, and by the way …’ But being the mate he didn’t, suspecting that I would have gone walkabout had I heard about Gomars.

He was absolutely right. It was a nightmare end to what had been an utterly forgettable season.

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