More Blood, Sweat and Beers

by Lawrence Dallaglio

  Mister Airport Security had obviously had enough and pointed towards the two yellow feet on the floor indicating I should place my own feet on them so he could search me with his wand. He waved it silently up and down my left then right leg and around my midriff. I was beginning to wonder if the dental work I’d received over the years contained enough metal to set off a sensitive airport machine. The guard continued his wand waving along each of my arms and as it passed my chest something triggered a loud buzzing. A smile appeared on my face as I realised what had been detected. The guard stiffened, took one pace back and asked me to unbutton my shirt. With hindsight he was probably under the impression I had a knife taped to my chest and wanted to be a safe distance away in case I became a threat. I undid two buttons and slowly reached inside my shirt. I could tell the guard was now on ‘full alert’ as I grabbed the offending article and held it a few inches away from my body for him to inspect.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ I said as I dangled my World Cup winner’s medal in front of his face, ‘but now it’s out, you may as well take a good look because it’s going to be at least four years and probably longer before you see one of these again.’

  Did he see the funny side of it? No, he didn’t, but fair play to him he had probably been on the wrong end of jubilant English fans taking the mickey for hours. He briefly questioned my parentage before allowing me to collect my belongings from the various receptacles which were by now clogging up the security scanner.

  The Thousandth Time

  Ben Kay

  Ben and I have become inextricably linked as a result of pub quizzes around the country:

  Q1. Who was the only member of the squad to play every minute of every game in England’s successful 2003 World Cup campaign?

  A. Lawrence Dallaglio

  Q2. Which England player repeated the achievement during the 2007 World Cup campaign when England lost the final to South Africa?

  A. Ben Kay

  ‘Ben is also one of only four players to be in the starting line-up for England at both World Cup finals, the other three being Jonny Wilkinson, Jason Robinson and Phil Vickery.

  ‘Ben played sixty-two Test matches for England scoring two tries along the way (should have been three, sorry for mentioning it, Ben). He made his England debut against Canada on 2 June 2001, displacing Danny Grewcock from the England side (there’s a reasonable chance Danny may have been suspended at the time). He also played nearly 300 games for Leicester Tigers during his eleven seasons with the club.

  ‘Ben was one of the most highly rated middle line-out jumpers in world rugby. Add this to his surprising athleticism for a man weighing around 18st (115kg) and standing 6ft 6in, and you end up with a formidable second-row forward, someone I was always pleased to have on my side when playing for England.

  ‘Since retirement from the game at the end of the 2009–10 season he has become a popular commentator for the ESPN channel during their coverage of the Aviva Premiership.

  The England victory in the World Cup final 2003 has been covered extensively by radio, television and the written media. Every highlight and every mistake has been scrutinised, analysed and talked to death, in my opinion anyway. I suppose if my name was Jonny Wilkinson I wouldn’t feel this way, but in these circumstances unfortunately I’m Ben Kay and when it comes to the World Cup final there’s only one thing people want to talk about. If only I had a pound for every time I’ve been asked, ‘How did you drop that ball with the line at your mercy?’

  It was about half an hour into the game and I was wide on the right-hand side of the field where the winger would normally stand. Was I there by chance or was I such a great reader of the game I knew the ball was going to end up where I’d positioned myself? The truth is I was knackered and decided to have a short rest away from the action, but before I had a chance to catch my breath, the action decided to come to me. The ball was whipped along the line and Matt Dawson, our scrum-half, passed me a ball which I would have caught nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand. Unfortunately it happened to be the thousandth time and it spilled out of my hands with the try line just inches away. The answer is, I don’t know how I dropped it, I just did.

  Things would have been worse for me had we not gone on to win the match (thank you, Jonny). I would have probably been haunted by that one moment for the rest of my life. As it is, we are now eight years on and occasionally a couple of days do go by without anyone mentioning it, so it’s not too bad.

  Although I made the mistake, I put it to one side after the game and concentrated on the fact I was a member of a World Cup-winning team. I did in fact play in every England match apart from the one against Uruguay, so felt I had made a decent contribution along the way. I celebrated long into the night with the rest of the boys and most of the next day too.

  We had been a confident side – not arrogant – and we all believed we were capable of winning the tournament, so when the victory came it was a moment of pure elation, the culmination of a lot of hard work. It was not necessarily a surprise; the surprise for me was the unbelievable scenes at Heathrow when we arrived home in the early hours of the morning. Literally thousands of people had made the effort to get to the airport at some ungodly time to show their appreciation of the achievement. This was then eclipsed by the reported half a million people who lined the streets up to thirty deep when we made the open-top bus tour from Marble Arch to Trafalgar Square with the Webb Ellis Cup. From the top of the bus wherever I looked the scenes were simply breathtaking. People were hanging out of office windows, standing on top of buildings, many waving flags and displaying homemade banners.

  It was during this bus tour that it became clear to me that the World Cup was officially over. Not because of the obvious – we were displaying the cup – it was more subtle than that. Clive Woodward (soon to become a knight of the realm) had looked after every detail of the campaign; he was clearly not responsible for ordering the open-top bus. I knew this from the moment I realised it didn’t have a toilet. With the celebrating we had done before the journey it was not so much a luxury as a priority. Things were desperate; I have seen some photographs taken that day and to be honest there’s many a grimace on the faces of certain players which could be mistaken for smiles. The reality was they were crossing their legs and fighting an almost uncontrollable urge to urinate. Most managed to control themselves. Some didn’t. Jason Leonard was seen using an empty champagne bottle as a receptacle, a feat which required considerable coordination, far more than Jason was capable of. He blames it on the bus making a sudden stop. From the death-defying velocity of . . . three miles an hour. But it was enough to put Jason off balance, causing some of the contents of the bottle and the remainder of what he had inside him to go over the trouser leg of Lewis Moody. Jason was feeling no pain and was probably not even aware of the accident while Lewis continued waving at the crowds seemingly oblivious to the large damp patch on his right leg.

  Following the bus trip we went to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen, a huge honour for us all. Before being presented we were briefed on etiquette.

  ‘Stand when the Queen enters the room. While it is not expected of you to bow, you may if you like. A man could bow his head from his neck. If Her Majesty extends her gloved hand to you, simply touch it briefly. A firm handshake would be discouraged.

  ‘Address the Queen as “Your Majesty”. Thereafter, each time you speak you would use “Ma’am”. If you address others in the royal family, male or female, the initial greeting would be “Your Royal Highness” followed by “Sir” or “Ma’am.”

  ‘Pick appropriate topics of conversation. Don’t discuss private issues or something you’ve read in the tabloids.’

  Fully prepared, we awaited her arrival. After a few minutes inside the Palace, and some nervous chat amongst the players, the doors opened and in walked the Queen preceded by several corgis, all of whom made a bee-line for Lewis’s trouser leg much to his surprise and embarrassment. The Queen remained w
ith us for about twenty minutes and had her photograph taken with the squad (it’s interesting to note the two corgis in the photo, one either side of Lewis seated in the front row).

  Our captain Martin Johnson introduced each of us individually to the Queen. As she worked her way down the line towards me I wondered what I should say to her. Having not read the tabloid press for several weeks I was relaxed about the possibility of making a faux pas. Martin extended his arm in my direction and said, ‘This is my partner in the second row, Ben Kay.’ The Queen extended her hand, which I touched lightly, looked up at me and said, ‘So tell me, Ben, how did you manage to drop that ball with the line at your mercy?’

  2007

  The staging of the 2007 Rugby World Cup returned to the northern hemisphere as France took its turn to welcome rugby’s most prestigious event. Once again a small number of matches were due to be played away from the host country, this time in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and Edinburgh’s Murrayfield. England had become the first nation from outside the southern hemisphere to win the trophy four years earlier and the French supporters fully expected France to become the second. The weight of expectation on ‘Les Bleus’ was enormous.

  Once again there were twenty teams participating. The eight automatic qualifiers were the quarter-finalists from 2003, leaving this time eighty-six countries competing for the remaining twelve places. The structure of the tournament remained the same with four pools of five teams, the top two qualifying for the knockout rounds.

  South Africa shared the same pool as England and stuffed us 36–0, the one and only time England have failed to score in a World Cup match. The defeat was a massive blow to England, although on a personal note I thought I made a decent contribution (I was dropped from the side after our match against the USA and was left bellowing from the stand, which I did very well). While this was a dismally one-sided affair, a number of other pool matches provided far greater entertainment value, most notably the contest between Fiji and Wales, one of the best ever seen.

  Wales arrived in Nantes for their do-or-die clash with the Fijians knowing defeat would see them crash out at the pool stage for a third time in World Cup history. The match was rated as the best pool game of the entire tournament by the IRB official tournament website, www.rugbyworldcup.com, and proved to be one of the most enthralling seesaw battles in international rugby (perhaps not for Welsh supporters).

  Wales took an early lead at the Stade de la Beaujoire courtesy of a Stephen Jones penalty goal. However Welsh fans were in for a rough ride as they witnessed their team concede three tries in the space of a whirlwind ten minutes. At 25–3 Wales were staring down a barrel but they rallied after this devastating opening period dominated by Fijian flair and power. Alix Popham’s try on thirty-four minutes reduced the deficit and James Hook’s conversion left Wales trailing at half-time by fifteen points. Wales restarted with more purpose and were aided with the sin-binning, on the stroke of half-time, of Fijian try-scorer Qera after he kneed a Welsh player. The extra-man advantage allowed Wales to creep steadily back into the game. Shane Williams notched a try five minutes in, his sixth of the tournament, and Jones’s conversion took Wales to within a converted score of the opposition. Gareth Thomas duly provided the much-needed try, marking his century of appearances in a Welsh shirt, but the conversion went astray to keep Fiji ahead by just two points. The lead then changed hands several times before a try five minutes from the end of the match by prop Graham Dewes secured a victory for Fiji 38–34. Wales were on their way home prematurely once again.

  France lost unexpectedly to Argentina in their opening pool match but still finished second in the group, which meant a quarter-final against the much-fancied All Blacks (when aren’t they much fancied?). Similar to their encounter in 1999, the French overturned a first-half deficit, winning 20–18, leaving their entire nation anticipating a first World Cup final victory. Unfortunately they needed to win their semi-final first. Sadly for the French, England spoilt the party with a 14–9 win which took us to our third final, and left the hosts to lament what might have been.

  South Africa, who’d walloped England a few weeks earlier, provided the opposition. By half-time we were 9–3 down but still in the match. A few minutes after the break, Mark Cueto appeared to wriggle over the try line following a brilliant solo run from English centre Matthew Tait. After almost ten minutes of analysis the video ref decided Cueto’s foot was on the touchline as he grounded the ball. No try. We lost the match 15–6 and the disappointment was palpable. Even though we’d started the tournament badly and in some respects limped into the final, it didn’t change the gut-wrenching feeling of defeat. It was a particularly sad moment for me as I knew my involvement in Rugby World Cups as a player was over. But what a ride I’d had.

  On the plus side I’ll be out in New Zealand later this year, cheering England with no worries about training sessions and personal fitness. I can join the ranks of supporters and find out what I’ve been missing all these years. I look forward to seeing you there.

  Text Book

  Selection Process

  This tournament was always going to be a different experience for me from the one in 2003, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was going to be my last World Cup. After twelve years of international rugby combined with seventeen years of club rugby with Wasps I knew my body was not going to hold out for too much longer (certainly not another four years). Secondly, in 2003 the squad was very settled and full of confidence going into the tournament, on the back of a Six Nations Grand Slam and a world ranking of No. 1. Four years on and the squad had not enjoyed the stability of 2003, finishing third in the Six Nations, losing by eight points to Wales and heavily to Ireland, and with a world ranking of No. 7, one place below Argentina.

  Looking back I think our coach Brian Ashton had originally pencilled me in as one of the starting XV but for whatever reason, he changed his mind as the tournament progressed. I did, however, start one match, our opener against the USA, who frustrated us for long periods of time and in all honesty I played like a drain, getting sin-binned towards the end. Now that I think about it, perhaps that had something to do with Brian’s decision. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier I was then dropped for the next match, the 36–0 drubbing we endured against South Africa, which I watched from the stand. You may notice I say ‘we endured’ because even though I was not on the pitch it was still a result the whole squad felt responsible for.

  That said, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to thinking that the manner of our defeat might just open the door to my recall. I was still ambitious and genuinely convinced I had something to offer the team. And in fact I was recalled, eventually, to the bench for the final group game against Tonga. But at least that gave me the possibility of coming on at some point, which I did in the sixty-fourth minute. From there on, that was the level of my involvement, a sixty-something-minute replacement in all the subsequent games, up to and including the final.

  I think of myself as a professional and during the team’s training sessions, even with my eighty-plus caps, I was honestly more than happy to hold the tackling bag so a guy with five caps could knock it over. There was only one moment I can remember when the situation got to me and a fleeting thought shot across my mind as one of the newer boys smashed into me and hit the deck. ‘While you’re down there you couldn’t tie my bootlaces could you, mate?’ As I say, it was only momentary and I caught myself. ‘For f**** sake, Lawrence, stop it. No he f****** well can’t.’ I wasn’t bitter. Honestly. I just thought it would be more advantageous to have me on the field of play rather than twiddling my thumbs and eating sweets on the bench. Unfortunately the decision was out of my hands.

  During the pool phase of the tournament we’d been staying in a beautiful hotel near the Chateau de Versailles, but having progressed to the quarter-finals the show moved to Marseille. My previous visit to the city had been with England during the reign of Clive Woodward and on that occasion our accommodation had been the Hote
l Sofitel Marseille, Vieux Port, known as ‘the best address in Marseille’. Imagine my delight then when in 2007 we checked into the Holiday Inn. There were three other teams staying in Marseille at the time, South Africa, Fiji and Australia, and apparently lots had been drawn to determine the allocation of hotels. The South African team drew the Hotel Sofitel, and I can only assume we finished fourth.

  On entering my room I was instantly engulfed by an incredible, awful smell. I had never in my life (and haven’t since) endured such a pungent aroma and as I made my way towards the window in a desperate bid for fresh air it occurred to me there must be a decomposing body hidden in the wardrobe. No such luck. Through stinging eyes I saw the source of the problem. Someone, or something, had been sick over the bedspread, carpet and bedside chair. Horrendous.

  It transpired the Georgian rugby team, beaten by France the previous day, had also drawn the short straw and been staying in our hotel. Clearly the player who had occupied my room had either been celebrating their one and only victory in the pool stages, over Namibia a week earlier, or had possibly scored Georgia’s try in the 64–7 defeat against the hosts. Either way, things had clearly got out of control and the dear chap had ended up emptying the contents of his stomach all over my hotel room. The maid had presumably entered the room, sniffed the air, glimpsed the various piles of sick and, with a Gallic shrug of the shoulders, turned on her heels and departed for the next room on her list.

  I remained calm as I described the state of my room to the receptionist and asked if I could possibly be moved. Surprise surprise, there was a Rugby World Cup on and the hotel was fully booked. I was asked to vacate the room for a couple of hours while the cleaners took care of the situation. I can absolutely guarantee if I walked into that room today the smell would still be there. Two hours of cleaning and a Shake ’n’ Vac was not going to put the freshness back.