Build up to Australia

I remember my first game for the Milton Keynes 1st team. It was an away match at Bicester, which was one of the top teams in our league. I was playing with my two mates from the previous couple of years, Joe Gorman and Kieran McConnell. We were terrified—it seems ridiculous now, but I was still new to the game, Joe was always worried about making mistakes, and Kieran, well, he wasn’t worried at all, to be honest. He always seemed laid back until you wound him up, at which point he would wind up his left hook. Anyway, like at most sports clubs, playing for the first team was the pinnacle for us, and here we were at 18, stepping out for Milton Keynes. We thought we were the dons.

Every game was followed by putting on the club shirt and tie and meeting back at the clubhouse with everyone who had played in the second and third teams. There, we would play drinking games, catch up on each other's games, sing a few songs, and jump in a taxi to go into the city center to carry on together. It was a massive family, and I loved every minute of it—apart from Theo, who was old and stank of piss.

After a few games in the first team, Alan Lane, our coach, set up a challenge. Because of my football background, I could kick the ball and relentlessly did so at every opportunity—something my ex-teammates would say never left me! I was always messing around with drop goals or kicking off the tee. Alan had probably had enough of it, so he told Kingsley Day, the first team’s usual kicker, that he wanted a competition between me and him to see who was better, in an attempt to get me to stop kicking his rugby balls all over the place. He set up the challenge: about ten kicks from different areas of the pitch. He said that whoever won the challenge would get to kick at goal in the match. I ended up beating Kingsley, and that started off my kicking career, which ended only when I got to Leicester. Alan gave me a tongue-in-cheek trophy, and Kingsley never forgave me. I’ve still got it somewhere.

In between all this, I had been studying for my A-Levels, which, in hindsight, was a waste of everyone’s time. I put in little effort and got what I deserved: three fat D’s. I was working between River Island and GAP in the shopping center, believe it or not, and spending my time and money enjoying life with my mates—going out or playing rugby. I had a Fiat Cinquecento in violet for my car and felt the freedom only an 18-year-old in his first car can! It had four gears and was 900cc; I looked like I was stepping out of a clown car, but I didn’t care one bit. After falling flat in my exams, I wanted to take a year off to consider my (limited) options, so I got a job working in a call center on some nondescript industrial estate in Milton Keynes. It was as depressing as the surroundings, but I needed money to save for a trip to Australia that I was planning to take with my good mate Joe Gorman. Joe, in contrast to me, got what he deserved and was accepted to Brighton University to study to become a PE teacher the following year. We were leaving for Australia in January of 2007, so after getting our results, we got our heads down and started saving. I also worked with Joe, landscaping as well as painting and decorating, and we kept having to chase our pay from the guy who gave us the job. In the end, Kev Gorman, Joe’s dad, went to his house, and we didn’t have a problem with pay after that.

In the build-up to flying to Australia, Joe and I decided that we were going to Sydney to find a rugby club and a job. I looked on the internet for rugby clubs with no idea what I was looking for in a club or where in Sydney we would like to be based. I sent out a few emails and only got replies from two clubs: Eastern Suburbs and Northern Suburbs. Both clubs ran a few U21 sides that played in the Colts section of the Sydney Shute Shield competition. This meant nothing to me at the time, but it turned out we were going to a club playing in the top tier of Sydney and Australian club rugby.

We arrived in Sydney completely out of our depth. Going from Milton Keynes to a city like Sydney was mind-blowing, but I loved it, and we had to take some time to get our bearings. It’s fair to say we arrived without any real plan beyond the idea that we were playing rugby and hoping for a job somewhere. We started by staying in the Kings Cross area of the city, notorious for drink, drugs, and prostitution. It was an eye-opener for us, to say the least, but it was a cheap backpacker hostel called the Blue Parrot that had taken us there, and we spent the first few days wandering the streets, unsure of what we were looking for. Eventually, the jet lag and feeling of being overwhelmed by what we were doing subsided, and we left the Blue Parrot. We had been drinking and chatting to other backpackers, who all pointed us in the direction of Bondi Beach.

Bondi was brilliant; it really was where all the action seemed to be, and rugby was not on my mind at all despite knowing pre-season had begun. The season in the Southern Hemisphere typically runs from March to September, so we had arrived in time to make sure we were able to be a part of the pre-season and give ourselves the best chance of fitting in and playing. I was having too much fun meeting new people from all over the world and going out or enjoying the beach life. But for Joe, he was sticking to the plan and started going to training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. In hindsight, I feel bad about leaving him to go alone for the first two weeks, but I was young and experiencing a world that I couldn’t get enough of! Eventually, suffering from a bad hangover, Joe and I went for a swim, where he reminded me of the reason we had worked hard to travel to Australia. It was fair enough; he deserved an apology, and I agreed to rein it in a little and get my shit in order.

Easts is a great club—a traditional clubhouse between the Royal Sydney and Woollahra Golf Clubs, in an area of huge wealth. Pictures of Wallabies and Super Rugby players who had represented the club on the wall indicated they knew their rugby. The kids turning up to training were driving very flashy cars: Mercedes, BMWs, Audis. This club was a million miles from where we’d been.

We tried to fit in, but there was a reluctance to really embrace us as we were temporary. They knew we weren’t committed to the club. We were outsiders, and even though they were used to visitors like us, they didn’t completely trust us, or at least, that’s how it felt. Even well-to-do Aussies are quite streetwise. We were soft poms playing in their backyard. We didn’t feel unwelcome, but there was a “them and us” mentality. Maybe I projected that, as it wasn’t me—we didn’t quite fit in.

I say the Aussies were guarded with us, but there were two guys: Ed Archibald and Jono Bush. I met up with them on the last visit I had to Australia and had a great time meeting their young families. They were country boys, gone to Kings in Sydney—down-to-earth lads, different from the city boys. They were interested, they talked to us, got to know where we were from. They shared lifts with us, vouched for us, and slowly, because they were well-respected in the club, the rest of the team came around to us.

In charge of the Colts section was Murray Cox. He became a big influence, and I owe him a great deal. We started the pre-season all as one, roughly 50–60 players, and it was clear that there were some really talented players—a lot of NSW and Australian schoolboys who seemed to be lightyears ahead of us. But I loved being around these guys, and I was eager to test myself, get stuck in, and prove myself. I did this through aggression and an eagerness to learn, which seemed to work because I was making an impression. Unbeknownst to me, we were selected to go on a pre-season camp to Kangaroo Valley for some team building before a match against a Brumbies rep side.