by Owen Sheers
So this is the other hurt that Adam hoped the beach swim might help heal: the slow, enduring bruise of loss. The oppressive ache of defeat that has settled on the squad ever since Harris’s kick and the final whistle that followed it. In the wake of that whistle Adam Jones stood in the middle of the pitch, looking both devastated and perplexed. Sam also stood motionless, his gumshield protruding from his mouth, his hands on his head. The team’s belief was instantly transformed into disbelief. More than one of the players cried in the changing rooms afterwards. They knew they could beat Australia, but for a fourth time in nine months – at the World Cup play-offs, at home and now twice here – the eighty minutes of each match had proved them wrong. They’d come south to take the next step in their development, to once again make a little bit of history. But they’d faltered in that step, and now the three-test series was lost, the final match next Saturday an opportunity to salvage pride rather than go for the kill.
The bus drives on up Carrington Road, the squad quiet and distant, looking out of their windows in private thought. As they do, Eric Clapton sings over them:
And then she asks me,
‘Do I look alright?’
And I say, ‘Yes, you look wonderful tonight.’
Along the length of the bus the players silently begin to sing along with him. Mouthing the lyrics, they watch Sydney pass them by, their faces ghosted in the glass through which they look. No one talks. The bus drives on, the song plays, and the players sing,
And then she asks me,
‘Do you feel alright?’
And I say, ‘Yes, I feel wonderful tonight.’
*
Just less than two weeks ago it had all seemed so possible. As the Welsh squad prepared for the first test in Brisbane, the same voltage of belief that had driven them through the Six Nations was still charging the touring party.
Wales had arrived in Australia in two stages. While one half of the squad flew on ahead to begin their preparations, the other half stayed on in Wales to play and beat the Barbarians. This meant that, as well as fielding the largest tour party ever – a total of thirty-four players – Wales operated for their first week in Australia like a twin-engined airplane, with each engine running at different speeds. As half the squad recovered from jet lag and the Barbarians game, the other half trained. When this half went for recovery, the newly arrived players went for training.
Even without this added complication this tour is already a significant logistical challenge. J.R. has transported sixty-seven boxes of equipment from Cardiff. Thumper had already visited every hotel, training ground and stadium months before the squad arrived. In each hotel they occupy, the Wales camp takes over entire floors to recreate the components of their team room in the Vale. Within hours of arriving, the Wales staff will have utilised ballrooms and conference suites to set up a dining area, treatment room, laundry system, banks of laptops for analysis, leisure area with table tennis and a dart board, a press room and a briefing area complete with projection screen and whiteboards.
The injection of a touring party into the life of a hotel can make for a strangely integrated yet divided experience. As other guests travelled in the glass lifts of the Brisbane Hilton, their cars rising and falling in the tubular shafts like bubbles in spirit levels, they witnessed the hotel’s interior suddenly infected with a rash of red. While the squad had a briefing session before their first test, a Sinatra impersonator warmed up in the lobby below them with a rendition of ‘Moon River’. As an aircrew checked in at reception, the uniformed group was strangely echoed by a cluster of players having coffee, all wearing identical kit and compression tights. As holiday shoppers returned laden with branded bags, they were met by the sight of the Wales squad in shorts and flip-flops, setting out for a walk along the river.
When the hotel’s Tongan night porter realised Toby Faletau was in the same building, he left him a note hoping, just for a moment, to draw him away from the squad’s regime:
Hi Taulupe Faletau,
Just to say hello I am Vili Naupoto (relative from Tonga) working here at the hotel (night auditor) starting at 9.30pm.
If you have time it will be very appreciated just to say hello in person.
By the way my sons follow your career very closely and proud.
’Opa atu.
Vilipau Naupoto
However daunting the logistics and the matches ahead, from the moment Wales landed in Australia their tour was fuelled by a positive sense of expectation and potential. Much of this was imposed by the Australian and Welsh media, but in the two weeks before the Melbourne test it was also genuinely felt at the heart of the touring party itself. As Shaun Edwards said at a press conference, ‘Usually at this time of year the boys would be in bits. But they’re not, they’re in good shape.’ At the first full-squad training session at Ballymore, in the north of Brisbane, the tantalising possibility of winning this series, of beating Australia on their home ground was palpable in the atmosphere. The stadium and pitch is used by the Queensland Reds as a training facility, so Wales trained at night, under floodlights, when they could have the ground to themselves.
As the squad warmed up with Adam Beard in the middle of the field, one of Rhys Long’s analysts, Rod, set up his filming and monitoring equipment high at the back of a grandstand. Thumper, meanwhile, walked into the shadows beyond the floodlights’ glare to check for less welcome cameras spying on the session. A photograph taken of Wales training earlier in the week had already appeared in one of the papers. ‘The buggers always try it on,’ Thumper said, before heading off, his satchel across his shoulder, to walk the bounds of the pitch. Accompanied by the metallic tang in the winter air and the croaking of cane toads from the marshes at the ground’s edge, he walked beyond the floodlight’s island of light and on into the darkness. As he got further from the squad, they became increasingly diminished under the floodlights’ glare, until they were no more than a red seam between the green of the pitch and the black night sky; a thin red line moving as one between the posts.
The connotations of that phrase – thin red line – are, perhaps, suitable for a rugby squad on tour. Wales are isolated out here; on unfamiliar territory, without their usual support networks back home. As such, in relation to their alienation, their unity is further emphasised. Most of the squad have purchased pocket Wi-Fi devices, and all of them tweet, Facebook and email regularly. But there’s still a sense that all they have out here is each other. That on these pitches of southern soil on the other side of the world the idea of a team is somehow stronger; that like an invasion force the further from home they travel, the more they embody and represent the country in whose name they have arrived.
There is, though, also something of the Trojan Horse about the character of a touring party’s invasion. Everywhere Wales have been they have been welcomed. The Australian Rugby Union have hosted dinners and events for Roger and the other members of the WRU travelling with the squad. The local media have attended the press conferences and have, on the whole, been generous. The players are stopped for autographs and photos. And yet they are all here with a single intention: to cause damage to the national psyche of their hosts. To beat a country which prides itself on sporting prowess on its own doorstep.
*
At the end of the squad’s training in Ballymore the three kickers on the tour – Leigh Halfpenny, Rhys Priestland and James Hook – stayed behind to practise. After the explosive defence and attack drills of the previous hour their session was, by comparison, a meditative caesura of calm focus. With just the three of them and Jenks on the pitch, the ground suddenly seemed larger under the floodlights; expansive and inviting. To a regular punch and thud of balls struck and landing, all three of them, working independently, once again went through their routines for place-kicking at goal.
The kickers are the snipers of a team; the individuals who, if on form, can single-handedly destroy an opposition, chipping away at their scoreline with penalties, drop goals and con
versions. Even when not scoring points, a kicker who’s found the perfect weight of punt against that day’s wind and weather, who can read the spaces on the field will cruelly punish the other team. However hard-fought gaining their territory may have been, a series of kicks at the right time into the right space will have them repeatedly turning and sprinting back down the field, eating up the metres of their endeavour as they do.
Just as a sniper in a military company will stand apart, will train their eye alone, so the kickers in a rugby squad need their solitary moments, quiet codas at the end of a session in which to hone the destructive quality of their boot.
As the Wales kickers practise at Ballymore, they reveal, with each kick, the attributes of their styles, still visible within the architecture of Jenks’s teaching.
As Leigh settles himself after stepping back from the ball, he stutters the toe of each boot into the turf, giving his right toe one more tap than his left.
For James, at the same moment, it’s a downward brush of the right toe across the left calf.
Rhys, however, prefers to keep still, planting the toe of his kicking boot behind him like a horse resting a hoof.
The ball in front of Leigh is sharply angled on the tee towards the posts. James’s is more upright, while Rhys’s is the most upright of all.
Leigh’s first slow steps towards the ball are like that of a cat stalking its prey. As he begins to tip forward he flicks his eyes to the posts once more, as if looking up at the call of his name.
For James, it’s as if he’s descending the stairs, lowering himself with each step, pressing his aquiline features closer to the ball.
For Rhys, his first steps are like taking a stroll.
And then all three of them speed up. All three, in a sudden explosive moment, take their final strides quickly, plant their left foot beside the ball and strike through it with their right, their bodies scissoring with the effort.
For a split second, as the ball flies from the tee, they are also in the air, suspended, with neither boot touching the turf.
When they make contact again, for all three it is with their kicking boot, snapped to the ground like the closing of a predator’s jaw.
And then, with Jenks watching and commenting, a ball under each arm as he patrols the field, they do it again. And again. And again. With the cane toads croaking in the darkness and the temperature falling, Leigh, James and Rhys kick at those posts from their positions on the pitch, unsatisfied with anything other than the ball bisecting them as cleanly as possible. And then they start again, changing their positions, each man throwing his tee ahead of him like a gambling chip thrown to a casino’s baize.
*
Three days later the air of expectation felt at that training session in Ballymore was still tangible as Queensland rugby fans streamed into the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane for an 8 p.m. kick-off. Welsh supporters took their seats among the Australian crowd with memories of the Grand Slam still fresh in their minds, as if they held a secret of which their hosts were ignorant. Up in the commentary box Gwyn Jones, whose broken neck had brought Dan Baugh to Wales and Rob Howley into his captaincy, was also hoping his debut match as S4C’s ‘first voice’ would be a historic Welsh win down under.
The day before Gwyn had dropped in on the kickers’ practice, the shiver of his injury still evident in his gait as he’d walked alongside the pitch watching their form. A shrewd commentator on the game, Gwyn knows this squad well, and what he saw at that practice session bolstered his hopes for their success. The kickers and coaches all broadcasted the same calm steadiness that had seen them through their Six Nations campaign. Australia, meanwhile, were still fending off home criticism after their 6–9 loss to Scotland in hurricane conditions at Newcastle just four days earlier. So as he settled his headphones over his ears, with swallows and moths flying through the beams of the floodlights, Gwyn was confident about the Welsh potential in the match ahead. He was, however, also aware of their weaknesses.
This would be the first match Rhys had played at ten without the injured Jamie Roberts on his shoulder. The big centre had always been his fall-back position on a flat option throughout the Six Nations, so it remained to be seen what he’d do without him there. Similarly, the two centres who’d been paired in his absence, Jonathan Davies and Ashley Beck, hadn’t played top-flight rugby for two months. Despite the Scottish defeat, Australia were still number two in the world, and would be eager to answer their critics in the media. Wales would have to slow Australia down. If they didn’t, they’d be sucked into a fast game, and that alone could be enough to spell defeat.
That night after the match the treatment room of the Wales camp at the Brisbane Hilton resembled a casualty clearing station. Several players lay prone on the treatment beds, while others were on the floor, propped up against the wall. Scott Williams was still in hospital having his mouth stitched after a clash of heads with Tatafu Polota-Nau; George North was receiving treatment for a dead leg; and Leigh was having a large piece of gauze strapped to his back. For many of the Welsh players the match had been the fastest they’d ever experienced. Intense, and with a high ball-in-play time, it had also been relentless. Luke Charteris said he’d wanted ‘the pause button pressed’ when it was still the first half. Unlike their opponents, who’d just been through the Tri-Nations tournament, many of the Welsh players had had a break from top-flight rugby, and it had showed. At the end of the match Wales looked exhausted. They were also, despite a comeback in the second half, soundly beaten, losing 27–19 to their hosts. They’d lost, and they’d deserved to.
*
But this second defeat they’d just suffered in Melbourne last night was different. Against all the odds and the historical trend of an opening match setting the tone for a series, Wales had come out fighting and, for much of the game, had been on top. So this time the defeat didn’t feel like a loss, but more like a win that had been stolen from them. And that’s why, as the team bus begins to drop past the botanical gardens and towards their hotel, the beaked dome of the Opera House cresting above the trees beyond, the atmosphere inside is still so leaden. Despite the swim in the ocean pool, and almost twenty-four hours since the final whistle, the hurt is still there, inlaid throughout the squad: in their expressions, their postures and in the heaviness of their tread as they disembark from the bus and file into the lobby of the Intercontinental.
*
Two months before Wales left for this tour Warren Gatland fell ten feet while cleaning windows at his Waihi beach house in New Zealand. He landed on concrete, shattering his right heel bone and fracturing his left. There was no way he would recover in time, so for once it was a coach, not a player, who was ruled out of a tour through injury. Rob Howley, Warren’s assistant coach, stepped up to take over the squad. Although Rob has remained in close contact with Warren since, and despite him working with Wales since 2007, this was a seismic shift in his role. The final decisions – in selection, policy and training – were now his. With the change of a single word in his job title – from assistant coach to caretaker coach – his own words instantly gathered more weight, and with that weight, consequence.
Today, in the wake of the Melbourne defeat, Rob is clear about what the squad should do. They will stop. For two days they’ll pause the tour’s relentless routine and briefly disperse. The players need space and perspective to process what happened last night in Melbourne. A loss like that leaves a residue of grief in a squad, an emotion which must be respected and given time to run its course. On Wednesday they will regroup, assess what went wrong and plan their strategy for the final match of the series. But for now, for the next two days, they will no longer have to obey the kit instructions on Thumper’s day sheets, the training will pause and all the players, within the limits of their alcohol ban, will be free to do what they want.
The break is welcomed by the squad. They have only been in Australia for two weeks, but already the twice-recycled tour routine of train, play, travel is starting to
feel attritional. Including a midweek game against the ACT Brumbies in Canberra they’ve now played three matches, passing endlessly from plane to bus to hotel to bus to training pitch to gym to hotel to bus to plane. Predictability and boredom have become daily challenges. Shaun has travelled with a biography of Vladimir Putin under his arm, Rob McBryde with Emma Donoghue’s novel Room, while Roger Lewis has been reading Bruce Chatwin’s hymn to the outback, The Songlines. But for most of the squad, apart from their online lives and computer games, there has been little distraction from the focus of the tour: rugby. The free time they’ve had so far has been brief and isolated, leaving many of the players looking more disorientated than relaxed. Dividing into smaller groups they’ve gone shopping or hung around in the hotels drinking coffee, their explosive bodies restless in the muzak of the gilded lobbies. At these times, out of kit, their own clothes bestow their ages upon them once more. Along with those clothes and that age some have also adopted a surly uncertainty, a vulnerability even. ‘You have to remember,’ Ryan Jones says one day, ‘most of us are just ordinary Welsh boys who just happen to have been good at rugby. Then, suddenly, you’re playing for Wales, travelling in business class all over the world.’