Open Side: The Official Autobiography

Morgan’s out of the World Cup, that much is immediately obvious. What we don’t know at the time is that he’ll never play for Wales again.

Saturday, 13 August. Millennium. I don’t use any notes or prepare a speech this time. I just speak off the cuff and from the heart. I keep it simple. What are the three things we need to win this game? Discipline, work rate, belief. Nothing special, nothing Churchillian. It’s England at the Millennium. That’s enough in itself.

We’re level pegging at half-time, 6–6, and in the second half we stretch away to win 19–9. It’s the seventh time I’ve played an England representative side – Under-16s, Under-18s, Under-19s, Under-20s, in the Six Nations earlier this year and at Twickenham last week – and the first time I’ve ever beaten them.

God, it feels sweet. It’s not that I hate England – how can I, when my dad’s English? – and I certainly don’t have that mentality typical of some Welsh people that beating England is the be-all and end-all of Welsh rugby. But when you’ve only ever known defeat against a side and you finally get one over on them, it means more and tastes better than just your average common or garden victory.

‘Smiler’s out.’

‘What do you mean, Smiler’s out?’

‘His neck injury’s worse than we thought. We’d reckoned he could get through the World Cup and have surgery when the tournament’s over, but there’s no chance of that now. In Poland there were times when he couldn’t sleep for the pain. Losing feeling in his hands, that kind of stuff. Really struggling. He needs half a disc removed, and he’s going under the knife in Bristol any day now.’

Poor Smiler. He must be gutted. Every player dreams of playing in the World Cup. But I know what’s coming.

‘So,’ Gats says, ‘we’d like you to carry on as skipper on a permanent basis. To the World Cup, and beyond.’

Smiler rings me. He’s still on the ward after his operation.

‘Gats says you’re not sure about taking the captaincy,’ he says.

‘Yeah. I just feel it’s too early for me. I don’t captain the Blues, and I’m still quite new in the national set-up.’

‘Well, that’s one of the reasons Gats wants you. He’s looking long-term, for the next few seasons rather than the next few matches, just like the All Blacks have done with McCaw. And for what it’s worth I think you’ll do a great job. You’re guaranteed a starting spot, you’ll get a lot of help from the senior boys like Gethin and Alun Wyn, and most of all everybody in the squad respects you and likes you.’

Maybe, I think, but I know quite a few of the senior players disagree with my selection as captain. No one says anything bad to my face, but I can still tell. I guess that if I had 60 or 70 caps and fancied my chances as captain, and then someone with a quarter of that number was suddenly catapulted over the top of me into the hot seat, I’d probably feel the same way too. Knowing that there’s disapproval out there makes me feel as though I’m walking round with a sign hanging from my neck and a huge weight on my shoulders, both of them dragging me down when I should be standing tall and proud.

‘Listen,’ Smiler continues. ‘When I was first offered the role I wasn’t sure either, even though I’d already played for the Lions. Anyone with any sense doubts themselves. But I got great support and felt more comfortable with every game that passed. You’ll find the same. Trust me. Opportunities like this don’t come round too often, and if you turn it down you’ll kick yourself.’

I really appreciate Smiler’s call and I tell Gats I’ll do it, but deep down I’m still not sure. And I’m so immature in some ways that I can’t bring myself to front up and tell Gats my worries, even though I see him every day at training. I use Andy as an intermediary, which is chicken of me but at least gives me the chance to talk through things with him first.

‘I hate captaincy,’ I say. ‘It’s a strong word, but it’s the right one. I hate it.’

‘OK,’ Andy replies. ‘What don’t you like about it?’

‘I hate having a room on my own. I like having someone to bounce off.’

‘I’m sure we can change that. What else?’

‘I hate doing press.’ Not because I dislike the journalists personally – quite the opposite, they’re mostly good guys who know their rugby – but because all that press stuff gets in the way of everything else. The other day I had to miss lunch to do the press conference, but I couldn’t afford not to eat, so I got a plate of turkey, potatoes and vegetables, put it in a blender, added water and drank it like a protein shake. And yes, it was every bit as rank as it sounds.

Or I might have to miss the analysis sessions, which means I have to catch up on the calls and the moves everyone else knows perfectly, and then I risk being the one who messes it up. I especially hate live interviews, because they always want you there 20 minutes early and so you’re kicking your heels all that time for what ends up being a 90-second piece.

‘OK,’ says Andy. ‘Let’s ask that you do press once a week, no more. What else?’

‘Sponsorship appearances.’

‘What about them?’

‘There are too many.’

‘Then let’s delegate them among the boys.’

It sounds so simple, because it is, but until Andy goes through all this with me I don’t realise that captaincy, like everything, is give and take. Very few things are set in stone, and there’s almost always room for discussion. When we take my concerns to Gats, he’s fine with all of them.

But even so, he senses that I’m still unsure.

‘Have a look at this,’ he says.

It’s a clip from our victory over England at the Millennium. I tackle Mark Cueto, then immediately jump back up and take my position in the defensive line. Josh Turnbull competes at the ruck and wins the penalty. Immediately I march to the ruck, punching the air, pulling Josh to his feet and slapping his back, geeing everybody up.

Gats pauses the clip. ‘That’s leadership,’ he says simply.

Now I’m beginning to get it. I smile and begin to walk away.

‘Sam,’ he calls out. I turn. He’s pointing to my new sponsored Range Rover. ‘If you still don’t want to be captain, your profile won’t be as high and Land Rover might take that nice car off you.’

He smirks. I laugh. He’s got a point.

In his book The Captain Class, Sam Walker, former global sports editor at the Wall Street Journal, identifies seven traits that elite captains demonstrate. What Gats has just shown me is an example of one of them: ‘motivates others with passionate nonverbal displays’.

The others are:

 extreme doggedness and focus in competition

 aggressive play that tests the limits of the rules

 a willingness to do thankless jobs in the shadows

 a low-key, practical and democratic communication style

 strong convictions and the courage to stand apart

 ironclad emotional control

As descriptions of both my style of play and my personality, all seven seem pretty much spot on.

Friday, 2 September. We land in Wellington. Including the time difference, it’s two days since we left home.

We go for a walk to help ease the stiffness after so long in an aeroplane. Look, someone says, there’s a bar up ahead. Let’s go get a drink.

The bar is called Mermaids. There are a few half-dressed women in there, and a pole on a stage, but we’re all a bit jetlagged and zonked so we don’t really twig what’s going on. We think it’s just a mildly risqué place. Most of us order coffee. A couple of the boys have a beer.

Then we see it. A huge, illuminated neon arrow pointing up the stairs, and beneath it in equally huge illuminated letters the word ‘SEX’.

We’re in a brothel.

We finish up our drinks a lot quicker than we started them and get the hell out. It’s only a couple of weeks since England made headlines for all the wrong reasons with their dwarf-tossing in a Queenstown bar, and if there’d been someone around with a camera we could easily have been in the same position, spending days dealing with the fallout and the negative publicity rather than concentrating on preparing ourselves for the tournament.

It was an innocent mistake, but try telling that to the press pack and the social media hordes. We’ve dodged a bullet there, and we know it. That’s one of the advantages of not being a high-profile team like England: we can fly under the radar a little. I hope we can stay there for a while.

It’s my first time in New Zealand. When Gats first came over to be interviewed for the Wales job, the WRU chief executive Roger Lewis took him on a helicopter trip over South Wales. Villages and towns dotted with rugby pitches, fields and hillsides lush with rain, valleys and the mountainous beauty of the Brecon Beacons – Lewis knew just what he was doing.

‘It looks like New Zealand,’ Gats said.

It does. And now I’m here, I see that the reverse is obviously true too – that New Zealand looks like Wales. The similarity doesn’t stop there. Both countries have got small, rugby-mad populations: just over three million for us, just under five million for them. England, France, South Africa, Australia and the rest of the big names here – their populations are too big, their range of other sports too large, for rugby to capture the soul of the nation in the way that it does us and New Zealand.

I feel right at home.

In Wales, the most celebrated position on the field is number 10, the fly-half. Think of the men who’ve played there: Cliff Morgan, Barry John, Phil Bennett, Jonathan Davies, Neil Jenkins, Stephen Jones.

New Zealand have produced their share of excellent fly-halves too, but for them the sacred number isn’t 10. It’s 7. Before Richie McCaw was Josh Kronfeld, before Kronfeld was Michael Jones, and before Jones was Graham Mourie. To be playing 7 in New Zealand, even if you’re not playing for New Zealand, is to take on a precious mantle.

Gats and I are in a press conference before our first pool match against South Africa. ‘There are three definite world-class players at the breakdown in this tournament,’ Gats says. ‘David Pocock, Richie McCaw and Heinrich Brüssow. I’d rate the guy next to me in that category as well. A lot of people haven’t seen Sam Warburton play, but he’ll create an impact in this tournament. He wins man of the match more often than not, and you’ll find out why on Sunday.’

Bloody hell, I think. No pressure, Gats.

Sunday, 11 September. You never want the hardest game in the group first up, because if you lose, then every game after that becomes a must-win. Even if those must-win games are ones you should win, it still alters the equation a little bit. But we didn’t choose the schedule and we can’t alter it, so there’s no point complaining. Crack on. Game on.

I lead the boys out in Wellington. At 22 years and 341 days old, I’m the youngest World Cup captain ever. I’m up against a seriously talented back row – Brüssow, Schalk Burger and Pierre Spies – but I feel invincible, and I play like it too. This is the best international match I’ve played so far, and only perhaps one or two more in the future will match it.

I’m everywhere. I make 23 tackles, almost a quarter of the team’s entire total. I secure six turnovers. I’m faster to every breakdown than the AA could dream of. No matter how quick the Boks are, I’m quicker, and it really pisses them off. As the game wears on I can hear them shouting more and more at each breakdown: ‘Smash him. Get him off the ball!’

They try and clear me out by fair means or foul. I cop a massive blow to my head and can hardly stand up for a moment or two while the world spins, but I’m there at the next breakdown, and the next one, and the next one after that.

I win man of the match. And we lose the game. Only by a point, 17–16, but a loss is a loss. It doesn’t matter how well I played, because we lost. But it does matter how well I captain, because I make one mistake that may have a big effect on the result.

It’s the 14th minute. Hooky – James Hook – kicks a penalty so high that it passes over the top of the upright. From where I’m standing, it’s hard to tell whether it’s just in or just out. The assistant referees watch the ball in flight, look at each other and keep their flags down: no score. The referee, Wayne Barnes, agrees.

Even though both Hooky and Jenks think it’s gone over – Hooky’s so confident that he starts running back to the halfway line for the kick-off – I don’t think of questioning it. The moment comes and goes so quickly that I’m almost not aware of it. I should question it, but I don’t. It’s just not me, to confront something like that. Ironic that I’m happy to confront enormous Springbok forwards all day but not ask a simple question of the officials, but there you go. I’ve never been the kind of person to complain in restaurants or make a fuss in public, and that feeds through into this.

It might not make a difference, of course. The officials might decide after looking at a replay that there’s no reason to change their minds; and even if they do, it’s so early in the game that there’s plenty of time for South Africa to come back, and maybe they’d change their tactics if they were two points down rather than a point up. Rugby’s rarely as simple as saying that a single incident would leave the rest of the match unaltered.

In years to come, this respect for referees and their decisions will become one of my biggest strengths. But right now it feels like a huge weakness, and even though I can’t change what’s happened, I resolve that if it ever occurs in the future I won’t make the same mistake again.

Losing to South Africa means that, assuming we both win all our other pool matches, we’ll come second in the group and face the winner of Pool C in the quarters. That’s almost certain to be Australia, whose toughest match in that pool is against Ireland. We’ve only won one of our last six games against the Wallabies. You can say all you like about having to play the good teams sooner or later, but Australia in the quarters would be a big ask.

The Irish turn them over 15–6.

Suddenly, all the permutations are flipped 180 degrees. Now it’s almost certain that we’d play Ireland in the quarters, which is a far easier prospect. We know Ireland’s game so well, we beat them in the Six Nations, and we reckon we’ve more than got the measure of them.

We’re looking at a semi-final here, I think, as long as we don’t screw it up.

Sunday, 18 September. Hamilton. We almost do screw it up. We’re 10–6 down to Samoa at half-time, and if we lose this that’s zero points from two games and we’re almost certainly on an early flight home.

I don’t know what to say to the boys in the dressing room, but Shane Williams does. He gives us all the most almighty bollocking. ‘There’s no way we’re going to lose this,’ he yells, ‘not after everything we’ve been through.’

Remember Spala.

Samoa are without doubt the dirtiest team I’ve played against; at one point I get someone’s heel in my face as I’m lying on the floor, and it’s not an accident. Stung by the thought of going home, we take it to them physically. We pluck it fast off lineouts, Jamie runs over Seilala Mapusua in the 12 channel, we work it through the biggest forwards until there’s space out wide and we can spread it. They don’t score a point in the second half, and we run out winners 17–6. It’s not pretty, but the result’s all that matters. Very few teams ever go through tournaments playing brilliantly all the time and swatting aside every opponent.

Now we know we’ll be in the quarters, because with the best will in the world we’re not going to lose either of our remaining matches to Namibia or Fiji.

Monday, 26 September. New Plymouth. There’s a moment against Namibia which means a lot to me, even though no one in the stands and few people on the pitch even notice. We have a penalty, and I tell Stephen to go for the three points rather than kick to the corner and go for a lineout within range of their tryline.

I know some of the boys will think this is me being too conservative, and that I should be being ruthless against a team who are never really going to trouble us – we’ll end up beating them 81–7 – but Stephen quiets any dissent.

‘Warby, you’re our captain,’ he says. ‘Whatever you say, we’re doing.’

From someone with more than 100 caps, that’s an endorsement I appreciate.

Sunday, 2 October. Hamilton. On the bus back from the Fiji game, as pleased with the zero points we conceded as the 66 we scored, I’m looking out of the window when I get a sudden and rather weird rush of feeling: a wave of positivity and excitement. We’re going to do something here. We’re going to do something special.

Saturday, 8 October. It’s wet and windy in Wellington – when is it not? – so at least we’ve got conditions that wouldn’t be out of place in either Cardiff or Dublin. Everyone’s talking about the back rows, because whenever we play Ireland it seems to be a massive cock-off as to who’s got the best.

Theirs is pretty good – Stephen Ferris, Sean O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip – but I reckon that Lyds, Toby Faletau and I have got the measure of them. Go low, Shaun says before the start. Go low at them, get their big men to the ground, chop tackle them all day long. Lyds tackles, I jackal. That’s how we’ll win our battles.

We’re ahead within three minutes. We run what we call ‘pattern’ and everyone else calls ‘Warrenball’, Jamie doing his usual battering-ram impression up the middle and working the phases from that to put Shane over in the corner. Rhys Priestland nails a very difficult kick, given the conditions, and we’re seven points up almost before we’ve started.

We’re never headed, even though Ireland do bring it back to 10–10 just after half-time. It’s a proper old-school Test match, intense and brutal, full of blood and thunder. They spend long periods attacking, but we just stand firm and soak it up, a red line spread across the pitch. When one team attacks and attacks without the scores to show for it, their self-belief inevitably starts to ebb away.

That’s what happens here. By the time we get to the last quarter, we know we’ve got them. They’re only five points behind, but they look tired and under the cosh; and when Foxy (Jonathan Davies, whose parents own a pub called The Fox and Hounds) scores we know it’s all over. The Welsh fans spend the last 15 minutes singing ‘Delilah’ over and over.

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