Open Side: The Official Autobiography

Even as a fan, I always loved the Six Nations, and on the morning of every match I’d read all the papers I could find: the predictions, the stories, the latest bulletins from inside the Wales camp. The tournament has such a long and varied history, and every year the players get a chance to add to that history by making some of their own. Five weekends to look forward to in the cold and damp winter days, and the simple primary colours of the competing teams: Welsh red, English white, Irish green, French blue, Scottish navy and Italian azure.

I’m driving back from Loughborough, where I’ve been seeing Rach. She’s studying there, and it’s 150 miles each way, but we try to see each other as much as possible. I know the squad’s due to be announced today, and each player selected will receive a text message by midday to let them know.

I’ve got my ringer turned up to max as midday approaches.

Silence.

The midday news on the radio comes and goes. Still nothing.

Maybe I didn’t play well enough in the autumn internationals. Maybe I haven’t been playing sufficiently well for the Blues lately. I think I’ve done enough on both those fronts, but then again I’m not the one making the selection calls. Am I another nearly man? Rugby’s full of them. The kind who play a few games at international level but can’t really cut it.

At 12.15 I pull into a petrol station. I’m filling the car up when I hear the text tone.

Congratulations, you’re in the Six Nations squad. An email will follow.

The relief. The sheer relief. ‘Yeah!’ I shout as loud as I can. The other customers are looking at me a bit strangely.

The attendant’s voice comes over the tannoy. ‘Pump 6. No mobile phones on the forecourt.’

Saturday, 13 February. Wales 14 Scotland 24, with 12 minutes left. I come on for Martyn. All the second half we’ve been attacking, and even though we’re still ten points down, we – and the crowd – believe we can come back. The game’s frantic, and I have to hit the ground running, adjust myself to its pace instantly.

I make some yards down the left-hand side. A minute or so later, I’m caught in possession by a couple of Scottish forwards. I’m fresh against some tired boys, and I’m hitting the rucks well, but I’m not carrying the ball as well as I could do.

There are only three minutes left when Pence – Leigh Halfpenny – scoots in for a try, which Stephen Jones converts. As we go back to halfway, Jonathan Thomas says something, but although he’s right next to me I can’t hear a word over the crowd.

We still trail by three. Now Lee Byrne goes through, kicks ahead – and is taken out by Phil Godman, who’s sin-binned. Penalty. Three points to draw. Stephen knocks it over as though it’s the training ground.

This is fantastic. If this is the Six Nations, I can’t get enough of it.

The clock’s already gone red when Scotland kick off for the last time. With Godman and Scott Lawson in the bin, we’ve got a two-man advantage. Stephen kicks to the corner for Pence to chase. Pence scrabbles, darts, sets up the ruck. We work it left and left again – and there’s Shane Williams, arm aloft as he goes under the posts to win it in the second minute of added time.

The Millennium goes mental.

There’s this guy called Andy McCann, who’s working with the squad. He’s a psychologist, which of course immediately brings to mind patients on couches and drawings of a house that reveals you have unresolved mother-attachment issues or something like that.

Andy gets that kind of stereotyping a lot, and always explains patiently that psychoanalysts, not psychologists, are the couch and Freud guys. He likes to think of himself more as a mental-skills coach, in the same way that we have coaches for attack, defence, scrums, fitness and so on. And it’s about something physical that I first really get chatting to him.

‘I’ve got some confidence issues when it comes to ball-carrying,’ I say.

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ he replies.

I go to see him in his room. He doesn’t tell me which other members of the team he works with, as all his stuff is confidential: more like a doctor–patient relationship than a coach–player one. I know that about half the squad use him, but I don’t know which half unless boys come out and say so. There’s still a stigma attached to seeing him in some quarters, as though it’s embarrassing, an admission of weakness.

I don’t care. Everyone can improve somewhere, and I’m no different. I want to be a better player tomorrow than I was yesterday, and if Andy can help me in that, then happy days. To me, it’s no different from doing extra gym training or sitting in my pyjamas counting McCaw’s tackle rate in Super Rugby. If it’s going to give me an advantage, then I’d be a fool not to give it a go.

In any case, Andy instantly makes me feel so comfortable that there’s no chance of being embarrassed.

‘Breathe in and out,’ he says. ‘In and out properly, using your diaphragm, until you feel relaxed. When you’re breathing in, that’s positive green energy; when you’re breathing out, that’s negative red energy. Positive energy in, negative energy out. Good. Close your eyes. Now, your next game’s against Ireland at Croke Park, yes? Imagine the noise. So much noise. Always is with Irish crowds, the way they get behind their team. You’re on the bench, and all this noise is swirling around you. Embrace it. Don’t let it intimidate you. It’s there for you just as much as it is the Irish players. Use it, the way they use it. Feed off it, the way they feed off it.

‘You’re warming up. Along the sidelines, behind the posts. Getting your head as well as your body right. Any minute now you’re going to get the nod. There it is. Warby, you’re on. The announcer’s voice. ‘Wales, Number 19, Sam Warburton. The crowd cheering your name. On you come. You’re relaying instructions from the coaches. Your voice and body language scream energy and freshness, and those by themselves give the other lads a lift.

‘First play after you’ve come on. You’ve got the ball. Short pass off 9. Now, don’t think of it from your point of view. Think of it from the point of view of the Irish player waiting to tackle you. What’s he seeing? He’s seeing how big you are, how strong, how dynamic. He’s seeing all your explosive power, and how much you love the confrontation, and he knows that when you smash into him it’s going to hurt and it’s going to take him backwards, and bang! There it is, and you’re through him and there are a couple of your boys piling in behind and you’ve got front-foot ball and the Irish are scrambling and your backs love you for setting them up like this.

‘OK. Rewind back to the moment you get the ball. Now imagine it from the ref’s point of view. Imagine where he’s standing, looking at you from side-on. He’s seeing the determination on your face, and all that power in you as you run, and he’s thinking “I’d better have my eyes peeled here, because this boy’s going to be hard to put down” – and bang! You’re through the first tackle – which means he’ll be giving Wales good ball, which means Ireland will try to slow it down at the ruck, which means they’re going to risk getting pinged for infringing at the breakdown.

‘OK. Rewind again to the pass off 9. Now imagine yourself in the crowd, high in the stands. What have you come to watch? The hits. Think of the ancient Romans and the gladiators. It’s alpha males, it’s one-on-one dominance. It’s in our DNA. The crowd see your power and intent, and they’re bracing themselves for something they can feel 25 rows back – and bang! They shudder at the impact, and then they’re looking at each other and grinning, like “How about that!”’

We do this for four separate incidents – a carry, a lineout, a tackle and a jackal. For each incident Andy makes me think of it from the same three viewpoints: the opposition player, the ref and the crowd. By the time we’ve done all 12, I’m feeling so confident that I could run out at Croke Park here and now. I see it all unfolding almost in slow motion, as though my brain and body are so much quicker than everybody else’s.

I open my eyes.

‘How long do you reckon we’ve been in here?’ he asks.

‘Ten minutes?’

‘Thirty-five.’

Andy helps me in other ways too. He teaches me relaxation techniques, tensing and relaxing various parts of my body until they feel heavy. He’ll massage my head and neck until I’m practically asleep. And he works with me to produce a document that we call Warby’s Winning Ways.

It’s ten pages or so, and I keep it as a PDF on my phone. It’s there so that I can continue to reinforce my positive mindset and remind myself that I’m good enough to be playing international rugby, that I deserve to be playing international rugby and that I add value to every team I play for.

On the front is a picture of me walking out of the tunnel at the Millennium before a Wales match. Behind me the tunnel is lit up all red, and on my face is an expression of total focus: confident in my ability, completely ready for the battle ahead.

Inside are some of my statistics on the pitch and in the gym: I’m strong, I’m fit, no one’s going to better me physically. There are positive newspaper clippings from people in the game I respect praising me. There are photographs of me playing well, and of people who matter to me: my parents, my brother and sister, Rach, Mr Morris and Lennox Lewis, whom I idolised as a kid. My dogs Ted and Gus too, of course; wouldn’t be properly Warby without my dogs.

We’ve even included pictures and logos of the companies that sponsor me, such as Land Rover, adidas and PAS supplements, because these companies wouldn’t be endorsing me if they didn’t believe in me both on and off the pitch.

Later in my career, when I’m more confident as a player, a person and a captain, I won’t need all this. But right now the third of those isn’t yet an issue, and the first two still need a lot of work. So I keep Warby’s Winning Ways close by at all times, and it’s invaluable.

Saturday, 20 March. My first Six Nations start, against Italy at the Millennium. My opposite number is Mauro Bergamasco. He’s smaller than me, but he’s a very good player with that bit of devil in him that all top opensides need. Un cane sciolto, as he once described himself: a marauding dog, an outlaw. He’s played on the wing and at scrum-half for them too. Definitely not your average 7.

‘If you don’t get the first shot in on him,’ Martyn tells me before the match, ‘he’ll niggle you all game.’

I don’t need telling twice.

Five minutes in, I see Mauro contesting a ruck. I come flying in like an Exocet and clear him right out. He, the ref, the crowd – they all see and feel that, just like Andy told me they would.

Mauro doesn’t come back at me all game.

Of all the things I work on and am known for, the breakdown is the single most important aspect. It’s a much bigger part of the game than it used to be; there are something like 170 breakdowns every game, which is almost double the number at the 1995 World Cup, which marked the end of the amateur era, and almost six times the number back in the early 1970s. There are also four and a half times as many breakdowns per game nowadays than scrums and lineouts combined.

That’s helped a new species of defender evolve: the jackal, who pounces on the ball when it’s taken into contact by the opposition and tries to scavenge it. The ultimate aim is of course the turnover, when you rip the ball from the opposition player and secure it for your own side. An interception try apart, the turnover is the single biggest momentum shifter in rugby. Suddenly, the team that were attacking not only have the wind knocked out of them by the frustration of losing the ball, but they also have to instantly reorganise into a defensive structure before the counterattack comes – and, statistically, that moment of transition leads to a disproportionate number of scoring opportunities. A player who can reliably secure four or five turnovers a game is worth his weight in gold.

In every team I play for, I am that player.

The jackal is the one who comes in after the tackler to try and grab the ball from the man on the floor. If you’re exceptionally quick you can be both tackler and jackal, bouncing up off the floor to go from one to the other, as long as you release the opponent after the tackle and before the attempted jackal. But at international level things happen so fast that this isn’t usually an option. Better to hunt in pairs, as I do with Lyds; he goes low to bring the man down and I’m on that man in a flash. Lyds and me: tackle and jackal.

The jackal’s not allowed to support his own bodyweight, which means no knee resting on the opposition player or hands on the ground beyond the ball. This means I have to be both very flexible and very strong; very flexible to get into the low, wide stance I need to secure the ball, and very strong to withstand the hits coming in from the other opposition players arriving at the ruck. Sometimes you get smacked by two or three men at a single ruck. It hurts. Trust me.

So for 15 minutes before and after every training session, I work exclusively on hip mobility: working my glutes, my groin and my hamstrings. I take the heaviest kettlebell I can find, set myself in a sumo squat and go from left to right and back again, shifting my weight all the way over onto one foot and then back through the centre to the other. Deep and strong, I tell myself. Deep and strong.

It’s basic physics. The lower you can go, the harder you are to shift. As Vince Lombardi, the legendary American football coach, used to tell his blockers, ‘The low man wins.’ If you’re low enough over the ball, the opposition players won’t be able to get beneath you to drive you up and out of the way. That’s where the leverage comes in, and without that they’re trying to shift you backwards without first weakening your strong position.

There is one way of getting me out of the jackal position, though only one team have worked it out and even then I’m not sure they know they’ve done it. Whenever you play against France, you can guarantee they’ll be grabbing your balls like it’s going out of fashion. That gets me off the ball better than any clean-out. Just pull my bollocks and I’m off.

Sunday, 23 May. The Blues reach the final of the Amlin Challenge Cup, basically the plate competition for those teams that don’t make it through to the latter stages of the Heineken Cup. The final’s in Marseilles, and we’re up against Toulon, a side for whom this is almost a home game – less than an hour’s drive away – and who are chock full of international superstars: Jonny Wilkinson, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe, Tana Umaga and Sonny Bill Williams. The stadium’s a sea of black and red, Toulon’s colours, with only a few hundred Blues fans in there. We’re massive, massive underdogs.

And we win. Against all the odds, we hold out for a 28–21 final score. It’s the first time any Welsh club has won a European title. I should be bursting with pride, and for the boys I am, but I don’t really feel part of the victory.

It’s not just that I only came on as a sub in the final, and didn’t play in either the quarters against Newcastle or the semis against Wasps. It’s that, much as I love the Blues – and I really do, I’m a one-club man, both as player and fan – I don’t play quite as intensely for them as I do for Wales.

I still play to a high standard, don’t get me wrong. But when I play for Wales, I’m ruined for days afterwards. The way I play is so physical that if I played for the Blues week in, week out the way I play for Wales a handful of times a year, I’d never be off the physio’s table, and I’d be retired by the age of 25. My body just wouldn’t take it.

It’s an emotional thing as much as a physical one. Getting yourself up for the confrontation on the weekend isn’t just a matter of putting on the strapping and going out there. It’s a lot of mental strain, a lot of the old Shakespearian stiffening up the sinews. That takes its toll too.

And I’m the kind of player who needs pressure to really perform. With the best will in the world, even a European club final isn’t remotely on the same level as a Six Nations match, a World Cup knockout tie or a Lions Test. I need those environments in which to perform my best.

And if this leaves the Blues feeling a little short-changed, then I understand that and to an extent agree with it. But like all players, I’m not a robot.

Saturday, 5 June. South Africa at the Millennium. Martyn’s been given the summer off. He’s 34, and even his storied career is going to end sooner rather than later. This is your chance, coach Warren Gatland – Gats – tells me. This is your chance to prove to me that you’re our best 7. He leaves the second half unspoken: not just for this year but next year too, when the World Cup’s taking place in New Zealand. Put down a marker for that tournament.

It’s my first time playing South Africa, and I love it. Perhaps more than any other team, they pride themselves on physical confrontation, which suits me just fine. In the first 15 seconds I tackle Joe van Niekerk, their number 8, but I get my head position slightly wrong and cop the most almighty crack in the gob.

I can taste the blood welling up inside my mouth. I take my gumshield out and feel for my teeth, checking that they’re all there, but the blow’s been so hard that I can’t feel them properly.

‘Mate,’ I say to fellow forward Jonathan Thomas, ‘can you check my teeth?’

He has a look. ‘Yeah, they’re all there. You’ve got a big old gash, though.’

Gashes are ten a penny. Crack on. I throw myself into contact after contact. It’s fast and furious, and when I’m subbed off with a couple of minutes to go we’re trailing by only three points, 34–31 down.

‘Let’s have a look at you,’ the doctor says afterwards.

He presses his finger on the underside of my jaw, and I almost go through the ceiling.

‘Yup,’ he says. ‘You’ve broken your jaw.’

Injury #3.

I need an operation, and they put a metal plate in my jaw. I’m ruled out of the summer tour to New Zealand, which is gutting; I so, so wanted to go down there and prove myself against McCaw, pretty much universally regarded as king of the opensides. And if anyone would appreciate playing 78 minutes with a broken jaw, it’s him.

Saturday, 27 November. I get to play against McCaw six months later, though not without another injury scare. Three weeks earlier, I tear my calf while playing against Australia. Injury #4. It’s somewhere between a grade 1 and a grade 2, which means I should be out for four or five weeks, which in turn means I’ll miss the New Zealand match. If you’re an international player, they’re the team you want to play: the most famous and successful in the history of the game.

‘You can get back in time,’ Andy says.

‘How?’

‘By believing.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. The right mindset can help you so much.’

I ask Prav Mathema, the Wales team physio, if he’s on board with this. I half-expect him to roll his eyes and say it’s a load of bunk, but no, he agrees with Andy, 100 per cent.

‘All right,’ I say. ‘Let’s do this.’

I pepper Prav with questions about the anatomy of the calf. When I have a picture in my mind of what’s beneath my skin, I start to visualise the torn fibres knitting themselves back together again. In my head, I send the positive green breathing energy from my lungs to my arteries, directing blood flow to the affected area and dragging all the damaged red energy back out again where it can’t do any more harm.

Four weeks, they said. I’m recovered in two. The fourth injury of my career, but the first time I really see how much difference a positive mindset can make.

We lose the game 37–25, but I feel I match McCaw in our personal duel, just as I’d matched David Pocock in the match against Australia. These two are as good as it gets, so to hold my own against them when I’ve only just turned 22 is a great confidence boost. Prove to me you’re our best 7, Gats had said. I’ve done that, surely, and a bit more too.

Saturday, 19 March 2011. Our final Six Nations game, against France in the Stade de France. Fifteen minutes in, I have to go off with a knock to the knee.

Injury #5.

I watch from the bench as we lose 28–9.

For the team, it’s been a mixed tournament. We lost our first match to England – our eighth defeat on the trot including the summer and autumn internationals – before winning the next three games: Scotland 24–6, Italy 24–16 (including my first try for Wales, running the inside line off James Hook: a 15-metre break that gets longer and involves beating more players with every retelling, as all forwards’ tries should do), and Ireland 19–13. We end up fourth with six points, the same as Ireland, but behind them on points difference and tries scored.

More than the results, though, there’s a sense that things are changing. Some of the old guard have been phased out, leaving a young team that might not have so much experience, but that has got both talent and the willingness to work together. We’ve done tons of fitness, strength and conditioning work – perhaps to the detriment of the rugby itself at times – because Gats has his eyes not just on this tournament but on the World Cup too. He thinks we can go far, but to do so we’ll need to match our opponents physically as much as anything else.

For me personally, the 2011 Six Nations feels like a triumph. Until the injury against France, I’ve played every minute of every game, and been consistently good. Almost every newspaper’s team of the tournament has me in at 7. To be brutally honest, I feel I should win the official player of the tournament award. This year, however, they’ve changed the way it’s decided, with a shortlist purely from the man of the match winners from the opening four rounds, before the public can vote for the winner. As a result, a couple of Italian players come first and second, even though their team received the wooden spoon.

Don’t worry about it, Andy says. These things are subjective, which means they’re out of your control. Rugby’s not figure skating or gymnastics, where the judges’ role is paramount. It doesn’t matter whether you win player awards or not. What matters is that you play well enough to be in with a shout, and I’ve certainly done that.

Monday, 9 May. The season is over, and I’m at home thinking about an upcoming week’s holiday in Portugal with Rach.

My mobile rings. I look at the screen.

Gats.

I wonder what he wants. It’s not like we speak every day, and there’s no Wales match until we play the Barbarians next month. He’s not the kind of guy who rings just for a chat. I honestly can’t think why he could be ringing.

When I answer, he comes straight to the point.

‘I’m calling to see if you’d like to be captain against the Barbarians.’

LEADERSHIP 2: PROFESSIONALISM

When people say that rugby went professional in 1995, what they mean is that from then on players could be paid openly rather than clandestinely, which had been the case under amateurism (or ‘shamateurism’, as it had long been known). This allowed players to devote themselves full-time to rugby rather than needing to hold down day jobs in other sectors.

But for me, and as Gwyn Morris pointed out back at Whitchurch, ‘professionalism’ doesn’t mean simply being paid to play rugby. In fact, professionalism has little or nothing to do with salary. Professionalism is about giving your very best, using your talent to the maximum and being highly competitive. Professionalism is about how you conduct yourself on and off the pitch: how you behave, how you train, how you prepare yourself. Professionalism is about making yourself not just the kind of player others respect, but the kind of person too. There were plenty of rugby players in the amateur era who behaved professionally, just as there are still some players nowadays who don’t, not properly at any rate.