Jonny: My Autobiography (19 page)

I don’t really drink, but I can still play drinking games.

We’ve got a pool table at the house and, with Harley and Sparks, we have a new way to play pool. Every time you miss a ball, you have to take a drink. According to the number on the ball, that’s the number of fingers’ worth you have to drink. And we are talking water.

Then we introduce another rule. When you have downed your water, you have to do the equivalent number of sit-ups, too. This is not a clever game.

Occasionally, very occasionally, I go out and drink alcohol, and because these outings are so few and far between, and because I enjoy being out with the boys so much, I don’t want the nights to end. So when the nightclubs shut, Sparks and I tend to find a way to keep the evening going.

Normally, this involves suggesting to Tom May, Pete Murphy or another teammate, why don’t we go back to your house afterwards? And then,
regardless of their response, we go round telling everyone in the club that there is a big house-party at the following address.

This time, it’s Mike Stephenson’s lucky night. We go back in a cab with Stevo and when we get to his house, he is slightly surprised to find thirty people outside his front door. He gives us a look that says what the hell is this? But we have a good time and everyone is buzzing – until the police rock up and tell us it’s time to move on.

So we leave Stevo’s, but on the pavement outside, realise that Ian Peel lives just over the road. So the shout goes up – party at Peely’s.

That’s fun, too, even if it does result in Peely getting his final eviction notice.

You can really feel the change around the England team on our summer tour to South Africa.

Everything feels so professional – where we are training, how we are training. Clive wants to lead change in international rugby, rather than waiting and following. We are not copying anyone. The desire now is to set the pace.

Although we are on tour, for the first time, we don’t move around. We are booked into the Westcliff Hotel in Johannesburg and that is where we stay. We fly in and out for games, but base ourselves in the Westcliff. The hotel is ideal, but the point is that this is no longer about touring. It’s about winning.

I feel we are getting our professionalism right. We know we are improving, the hard work from as far back as Couran Cove is paying off, and the consistency in player selection is helping. Players are getting the recognition they deserve. Lawrence is not just one of the best back-rowers, he’s arguably
the
best. Some of our other players are being talked about in similar tones.

Me? I’m young, still making my way. I’m still a fan of the other number tens around, with Stephen Larkham, Andrew Mehrtens and Carlos Spencer leading the way. The way Larkham dominates the attacking game, knowing when to turn on the pace, when to run on to the ball, picking his options, is awesome.

Mehrtens is an outstanding linkman and tactician. It must be nice playing with athletes such as Lomu, Wilson and Cullen, but they’re only capable of great things when he creates the opportunity and brings the best out of them.

I want to be great at playing rugby. I want to have the most impact in tackling, the most accurate goal-kicking, the best passing, running, workrate, everything. Apart from scrummaging and lineout, irrespective of my size or speed, I want to master every skill better than anybody else. So when I look at videos of games, I don’t really review how I helped the team, my decisions or how I ran the game. I look at my individual moments, my passes, my tackles and my breaks.

Clive has got a different message, and he is going on about it so much that I can’t avoid it. He pushes it in team meetings, and even more in one-on-ones. He talks about momentum, building a score, and drop goals. He wants drop goals.

But it’s not in my nature to give him what he wants. If we are trying to attack, I won’t concede defeat. I have eyes only for the try. I won’t admit it if the opposition defence is holding us and we are achieving nothing, and I convince myself that the next phase of attack will be the one that works.

Yet Clive wants our score to keep ticking. He wants us to show that we can always make our dominance pay; he wants us to build a lead that is more than one score ahead.

He uses video analysis to show me all this, and explains the psychological battle. If we’ve given them our best shot and they turn the ball over and we
come away with nothing, they are winning. But if we come away with points every time we’re down their end, it has the opposite effect.

When you’ve got a good shot, just sit back in the pocket, he tells me as we prepare for South Africa. Think about that drop goal.

I’m uncomfortable the night before games anyway, but the night before the first Test, in Pretoria, I feel genuinely sick. It’s the beef I had for dinner. At midnight I start vomiting and at two o’clock I start hammering on the door of Terry Crystal, the team doctor. When he eventually stirs, he gives me some tablets, but I’m still up vomiting until about half past five.

After two hours’ sleep, I’m still feeling pretty rotten and thinking I’ve got a game coming, I’ve got a game coming. I tell Clive and the coaches. They say if you’re not 100 per cent, don’t play.

But, for me, turning down playing for England is not really an option. On the other hand, I haven’t prepared. Usually, I do some kicking practice with Dave Alred on the morning of the game; not this time. I’ll usually be checking my game notes, fully focusing on what is to come. But now I don’t just feel sick; I feel unprepared. I phone Bilks and asks what he thinks.

Everyone agrees that we should come to a decision as late as possible. Only after walking into the changing room is it plain to me that I’m not up to it, and thus Austin Healey discovers that he is playing fly half against the Springboks instead of me.

Thanks very much for all the warning, Austin says. Now just watch me set this game alight.

And he does a pretty good job. I watch from the stands. The team play well, we match the Springboks, the video ref denies a try surely scored by
Tim Stimpson and we lose by five points. Most importantly, though, we feel we now could be, should be, ahead.

Our second chance comes a week later, at Bloemfontein. The atmosphere is hostile, threatening, and I can deal with that. What I find harder is the fact that they stage a practice game before the Test, which, for a kicker who likes to practice before a match, is a nightmare.

Before an international, wherever possible, I have a very specific warm-up routine. It includes 40 punts of varying style and trajectory, 20 off each foot. Then 15 to 20 goalkicks from almost along the try line, each side of the posts; the acute angle helps focus, accuracy and precision. Then four or five more from in front of the posts, just to check that everything is in place. Then I do restarts, six little scoops from virtually under the crossbar. Then a few grubber kicks and chips. This is a process carefully worked out with Dave over the years and it takes around 40 minutes.

On this occasion, though, we can hardly get on to the pitch. Dave and I go into the deadball area, while the game is in full swing, and start kicking backwards and forwards, stopping every time play comes in our direction. The Springbok supporters near me shake the perimeter fence, shouting and screaming my name aggressively, and yelling that I’m rubbish. Half of it is in Afrikaans, so I can’t understand, but it doesn’t sound much like good luck.

The intensity increases when the whole team take the field to a bombardment of oranges, Coke bottles and beer cans. At one point during the game, Johnno gathers the team round, just on our five-metre line, and a 1.5 litre bottle of Coke flies on to the ground and bounces right into the
middle of the huddle. In our deadball area, I find myself picking up crushed Coke cans and chucking them to the back of the field. We are trying to win a Test match and doing ground maintenance at the same time.

The crowd’s intensity is reflected in the game, and I find I am playing it in a slightly different frame of mind from usual. Being the best player doesn’t matter so much today; it’s more about winning, keeping the score moving, making the right decisions.

And then it happens. We are attacking, stretching their defence, and their players are struggling to cover the holes. So they’re not looking up at me, or thinking about charging down a kick. In other words, it’s a perfect time for a drop goal. But that’s not in my mind. I take the ball one way to attack, and then, as if a lightbulb’s suddenly flicked on in my head, I stop. I’m right in front of the posts, not far from the 22. This may be the best opportunity I get.

I take the drop goal. It flies through the posts. There, I’ve done it now. I’ve finally kicked a drop goal for England. But I still can’t help feeling that maybe I’ve just wasted an opportunity for us to score a try.

We have a good lead, more than one score, until they score a late try, but despite a panicky last three or four minutes, we manage to keep control. The referee tells us time up. The score is 27–22 and we’ve got a penalty next to the touchline.

The guys are all saying next time the ball goes out, that’s the game. And I’m standing there with the ball in my hands. What a great day it’s been. What an end to the season. I’ve got a 10 yard kick to finish it. I love this moment. Breathe it in and enjoy it.

Afterwards, a kind of pandemonium ensues. The 27 points all came from my boot, so I get the full treatment from the Sky cameras. They don’t just want a post-match interview, they want to follow me round the dressing
room. They want to know how do you feel? Is there anything you want to say to your family?

What I want to know is can we now stop talking about drop goals?

That game in Bloemfontein is described as a watershed for England, but for me, the real turning point is yet to come.

Five months later, I am facing my first autumn international series, but only after realising that the RFU have messed up on my flight from Newcastle to Heathrow, thus forcing me to take the only other option, which is a taxi. Funnily enough, my Geordie cab-driver doesn’t do many trips to Surrey, and we get lost, and it doesn’t help much that he doesn’t have a map. We stop and ask at a petrol station. Anyone know where Pennyhill Park is? No. Seven and a bit hours and a £400 cab fare later, I rejoin the England squad.