Jonny: My Autobiography (2 page)

We are on a roll and we carry on that way. The Stade Mayol is humming today, but the atmosphere is always awesome. Last thing, just before kick-off, the crowd do the traditional PilouPilou. This is a chant with a story, and the story is about the players being primitive warriors who have come down from the mountains to fight by the sea. The crowd love the tradition. They belt out the PilouPilou. But it doesn’t seem to intimidate the Ospreys players much – not at all. The Ospreys are here to play.

The game is tight and we exchange penalties until the Ospreys’ Shane Williams gets away for a try on the hour. That puts us 14–9 down and we stay that way until, with six minutes to go, we are awarded a penalty. I kick it and we are now two points behind. And then, with four minutes to go, I manage to push a long, floated pass over the top of their rush defence to Paul Sackey, who runs it in to score in the corner. To ensure we’re five points ahead and not three, I have the conversion from the touchline. I get that, too. It’s been a good day against a very good team.

So that’s five wins in a row. We do our ritual lap of the field to thank the supporters. In glorious sunshine, we wave to them and they sing their hearts out back. I like it here.

The Toulon seafront is usually quiet on a Sunday morning, but today it’s filled with gaggles of Ospreys supporters who are over here for the long weekend and are out nursing their hangovers in the sun.

We meet at a café on the front, Johnno, Brian Smith, the England backs coach, and me. I try to start the conversation, but some of the Ospreys
supporters come up and ask for a photo with us and we are kind of obliged to say OK.

With regard to my international career, this is the hardest conversation I’ve ever had, but Ospreys fans are everywhere. We get another request – can you do a photo for us? OK. So we do another photo and then we move on. We find a new bar, but that gets crowded. Again and again we get asked for pictures and so we move on one more time. We finish up in the furthest café at the water’s edge, our final option, and at last find some peace and quiet.

I tell them that, from my point of view, I don’t feel I’m fitting in to the England set-up any more. I’m not surprised that the team respond a lot better when Toby Flood is in there at number ten rather than me. They seem more relaxed with him. And me? I don’t feel like I’m myself around England, I’m not playing as myself, you’re not getting the best out of me and I’m just not happy.

I carry on. I tell them how the Six Nations and the summer Australian tour had been such a low for me and that I don’t know where I fit in to their plans any more. In the media, I became the scapegoat for our performances in the Six Nations, and it seemed to me that people were happy enough for it to be that way. I was being hammered in the press during that Six Nations and yet, every Wednesday, I was wheeled out regardless to smile politely and answer the questions of the writers who were pulling me apart in their columns.

The point is, I tell them, it’s too overwhelming. It’s killing me and I don’t know if I can stomach it any longer.

Some four hours later, we are finally done. There are no conclusions. Johnno and Brian say to me you should take your time over this. No, we don’t want you to stop. So spend a couple of weeks thinking about this hard.

The next fortnight is about as tough professionally as any I’ve ever been through. How do you end a story like this? I’d like a different final chapter. I’d like at least to end on a high note.

I live here in France with Shelley, my girlfriend, in the peace and tranquillity of the hills, a couple of miles back from the coast. I love the climate here, I love the lifestyle and I feel relaxed in our home, overlooking a valley of vineyards, but this Sunday I return filled with a sense of doom.

My mum and dad are over to stay with us and we debate the topic at length. What is the answer here? The thought of not playing for England again is simply unacceptable to me, and yet when I think of going back into the England environment, I know there’s just no way I can face it. I’m doomed if I do and I’m doomed if I don’t.

I start to canvas opinion. I ring Tim Buttimore, my agent, and he explains if you retire, the media response could be a big disaster. It could be construed that, because you’re not first-choice number ten any more, you just don’t want to bother.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. I am desperate to be back in there and enjoying it. I am a competitive animal to the core. I have never settled for second best, but at this point, my confidence around England rugby is so low I can’t even think about it.

I phone Mike Catt, one of my greatest friends and allies. He understands my pain. And he is positive. He tells me that in the right situation with England, they’d play to your strengths. You’d be straight back in the team and playing as yourself again.

I meet with Richard Hill, with whom I shared so much in the England days and whose career was finished early by a terrible knee injury. He
says consider the long-term side of this. You’re a long time retired.

I speak to Felipe Contepomi, my great Toulon teammate, friend and captain of Argentina, and he sees both sides. He says he’s gone through a generation change in the Argentina squad and now he sees his role as paving a way for the young guys to take over. But my goal has always been to contribute to the team and I can’t stop wanting to be the best. I’m just not sure that I know how to do that right now, and the thought of going back depresses me.

Already, since last summer, I feel I have come so far in rebuilding the confidence that was so completely shattered.

I got back from Sydney and spent four solid weeks in Majorca. Every summer, I holiday in Majorca and every time I’m there I train pretty much every day. This summer I did one boys’ week with Matthew Tait, Toby Flood, Pete Murphy, an old mate from Newcastle, and another old mate from way back in mini rugby at Farnham, Andy Holloway. Taity and Floody were a bit more professional about their rest than I was. I pushed myself to the usual limits, working out stupidly hard every day. I worked on skills and fitness. Inside, I worked on weights; outside the villa, on the road, I worked on kicking. I did everything I could to ensure I was well prepared and physically flying for the start of the season.

Our second game was a good away win against Biarritz, but it stood out for me because of Iain Balshaw. It’s been thirteen years since Balsh and I started playing together. The first time was at England Under-18 level, and he is still as incredibly talented as he ever was. Now he’s playing at Biarritz, uncapped by England for two and a half years.

We met in our team hotel after the game and ended up chatting into the early hours. I asked him what is it like? How does it feel to be playing just club rugby, not to be playing for England? I wanted to know. This is the
debate in my mind. He told me he’s still massively keen to get involved. It’s something he hasn’t got and really, really wants.

A month later, I got a different message. Toulon played the current champions, Clermont, at the big Stade Vélodrome in Marseille. It was a huge game with a ludicrous atmosphere and 55–60,000 supporters going nuts. After we’d won, 28–16, we did our lap around the ground to acknowledge the fans. I was walking round the stadium with all my Toulon teammates, whom I adore. Thousands of people were standing and cheering us in the sun and the voice in my head was telling me maybe this is enough. I’ve done it for England eighty times; maybe this is OK for me now.

The longer I continue in this state of indecision, the more I feel as though my life is on hold.

Two weeks after the Ospreys game, we are due to play Stade Français at the Stade de France. I go down to the club for a kicking session and I cannot concentrate on my kicking for this big game because all I can think of is my England career. Is it over or is it not?

The minute I make up my mind one way, I immediately switch and go the other. I hit one kick and say to myself just forget about it all, be happy in life, leave England alone.

Then I kick another, straight through the middle of the posts, and I think I can’t afford not to push myself to that level and waste all my hard work over the years. This whole career has been about pushing myself to the extreme, trying to achieve everything. I can’t stop.

I hit another couple of kicks and my mind starts to slide again. I think about how it felt with England recently. I think about the media fall-out
and watching helplessly as my reputation took a hammering.

But here, at this kicking session, I decide I can’t walk away without making up my mind. I can’t let this go on any longer.

I think about the 1998 Tour from Hell, when England got beaten 76–0 by Australia. I remember the tour to South Africa in 2007 when an already depleted team suffered from food poisoning, and yet still we had to front up against the Springboks. God did we suffer. Those were mighty hard times, but the point is this: I’ve never walked away from a challenge.

I can’t back down. I can’t live with myself unless I feel that at least I stood up and was counted. It’s been my way, my greatest value, and I am proud of that. I can’t let it change. That is the ultimate non-negotiable. Never give in.

I leave my kicking practice feeling slightly happier. I phone Johnno and tell him I’m in.

I don’t know how this story will end, but at least I know that there will be one last chapter. It’s not ideal, it’s not how I want to feel, but I’ve got to stand up and be counted one more time.

I’M not sure if I was born a perfectionist, or if I just decided subconsciously that was the way it was going to have to be.

When my dad pulls up the car at a mini rugby game, I immediately leap out and sprint for the nearest hedge because I need to be sick. Sometimes we have to pull over in a lay-by on the way there; sometimes we have got to the club car park by then. The thought of the game ahead just gives me a kind of panic, a deep fear and a sense of doom about what will happen if it doesn’t go well.

I am seven and I play mini rugby for Farnham, where Bilks – which is what we all call Dad – is one of the coaches. I am mad about rugby, particularly during weekdays, when Sparks, my brother, and I mess around with a ball in the garden during daylight hours, and then in the living room when it has got too dark outside.