one side, fifteen blokes on the other side. You do this week in week out, and just because everyone is making a fuss about it doesn’t mean anything will be different when you’re on that piece of grass.
You lose too much energy if you stress about things. The truth of the matter is that you have been selected because people believe that you are good enough to be out there, and if you’re worried about it then the fear is in your head. You wouldn’t be in the team if they were concerned about your ability. Now you have to get the confidence and believe you can do it, and go out there and do what everyone believes you are capable of doing. I know I’m making it sound simpler than it is, but you do have to have a train of thought like this to survive.
There were so many new things to get used to in the week leading up to a game… new calls in the lineouts, not being familiar with the other players, different coaching styles. John Mitchell nearly killed me in his training sessions. I’m sure I must have gone green in every one of them. It was awful. But the game was so much faster that you needed to be much fitter than you had to be to play the club game.
The night before the match I managed to sleep a little by taking a sleeping tablet. I tend to have to do that before a big game because I’m a bit of a worrier. At 2 a.m. in the morning I’ll be pacing around, reminding myself about the moves, the calls, and wondering how I’m going to pay the mortgage. Sleeping pills knock me out and ensure that I get the good night’s sleep that is essential if you’re going to play well at international level.
The thing I remember most clearly about the next morning and, indeed, the week leading up to the game is the number of letters, faxes, telegrams and emails that poured into the Petersham Hotel for me. Loads of people had taken the trouble to contact me, including Mike Teague, the former England player who’d been such a stalwart for Gloucester. I really cherished those letters and I’ll take the opportunity now to say an enormous thank you to everyone who took the trouble to send them. I was really touched by notes from guys I knew at Bude and Redruth. It’s difficult to get in contact with people to thank them at the time because there’s so much going on, but it was humbling to get all those notes from people and I’m very grateful.
I suppose I didn’t really know what a massive thing it was to play international rugby until I saw the letters and faxes and the interest caused by my selection. It just hadn’t ever been this big dream of mine to get to the top of rugby, like it is for so many people. I was always the sort of guy who just concentrated on the game he was playing.
We made the short journey to Twickenham by coach, then headed into the changing room. My most enduring memory is of walking out of the tunnel; that was amazing. I came out onto the pitch when we first arrived and saw there were just a few people in the stands, then I went out to the team warm-up twenty minutes later and it was half full. I didn’t go back out again after that, I stayed in the changing room and got myself taped up while some of the others went out to throw the ball around, so when I went out for the start of the game, just fifteen minutes later, it was packed in the stadium. It seemed astonishing that so many people had packed into the place in just a few minutes.
People talk about the noise when you run out of the tunnel, and it is truly amazing… like a wall of sound that hits you as you run onto the pitch. Then there’s the singing of the national anthem, which is such a highlight for me. I love it - there’s sound, a loud, roaring noise, then suddenly you’ll catch the words being sung and it all becomes so poignant.
I was given a great bit of advice in the lead up to the match that has stayed with me. Jason Leonard came over to me, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Make sure you enjoy what you’re doing and live in the minute. It’ll go so quickly; enjoy it all.’ I decided to try and take Jason’s advice, and as we dispersed after the anthems and prepared for the game, I was determined that I was going to enjoy this experience and cherish every minute.
Yeah. Great, in theory. It proved to be much harder than I’d imagined because it was so tough. After ten minutes I was blowing out of my arse! I was absolutely bloody knackered. I’d never known anything like it. I’d been warned about how fast the game would be, but it was way faster than I’d expected. It felt so incredibly furious. It was hard to see what was going on, and get a sense of what was happening on the pitch, when it was all flying past you at such a pace. The daft thing is that I bet if I looked back at the match now I’d laugh at how slow it was, but back then it was such a huge step up from what I was used to.
All my memories of the game are of the great speed and the big hits. Everyone seemed bigger, faster and more focused than I had ever seen in rugby before. I just had to concentrate on what I had to do and what my role was. I remember trying to stay in my zone and do what I was there to do, but things happen in international rugby that you don’t expect and you’re not experienced enough to cope with. They floor you temporarily, but you have to deal with them and get back on the game. If you make a mistake or someone does something you’re not expecting, you have to keep a clear head and focus back on what your role is. I think that’s one of the hardest things in international rugby - keeping your focus on what you need to do while chaos reigns all around.
The overwhelming feeling after that first cap was of just how proud I felt and how lucky I was to have the opportunity to have played the sport at that level with those guys. We all went to the Park Lane Hilton for a massive dinner and I remember being so excited to be at the Hilton. Scott Quinnell came over to see me. He’d given me quite a whack in the game, so he was the first person to come and have a drink with me. He gave me a glass of wine which I knocked back. He said, ‘Well done,’ then another Welsh player came up and did the same, then another, then another …
Then all my team-mates came up … one by one. I drank wine with them all. By the time the dinner started I was absolutely legless. Lawrence was captain so he stood up to speak, and I was so drunk I stood in the corner shouting, ‘Bruno, Bruno, Bruno!’ (his middle name). Lawrence had to keep looking over and asking me to be quiet. The evening’s all a bit vague after that, but I’m told that Jason Leonard and Roger Uttley carried me to my room and put me in the bathroom, with my head in the toilet. It wasn’t the most dignified way to end my first cap, but it was a lot of fun. I woke up at 5 a.m. with a raging thirst and dried sick all over my hair and clothes. Horrific. Things didn’t get any better when I found out that I’d been cited by Peter Boyle, the match commissioner, for punching Colin Charvis in the second half of the game. I must admit that the first thing I thought when I was told about the citing was, What about Scott Quinnell punching me?
When it came to the citing, I was lucky on this occasion, though, because it never amounted to anything. I was told that I would be penalised with a one-month suspension, which seemed harsh, because the offence would have meant me getting just a yellow card if it had been dealt with by the referee during the game. In the end, Roger Pickering, who was the Five Nations’ chief executive at the time, changed Boyle’s decision because he said, ‘The citing procedure was not followed to the letter. There were misunderstandings between people who I have no intention of naming and as a result of the legal advice obtained by the committee the suspension was deemed unsafe.’ All very odd, but I wasn’t complaining.
I staggered out of that hotel in the morning, still drunk, I imagine, aching from head to foot and with the worst headache known to mankind, but I felt lucky. Very lucky. I’d been given the opportunity to play for my country. Now I needed to do everything possible to make sure that I was given the opportunity again.
I had played in the game against Wales at Twickenham because Darren Garforth, the first-choice
