even more of my time in school.
Outside of school I was always on the go. If I wasn’t going on bike rides or playing on the building sites that were popping up where we lived, I was playing sport. That’s all I wanted to do. Rugby Saturday mornings, rugby Sunday mornings, football Sunday afternoons. Like most children that age, I rarely thought about what I would do for a living. I just wanted to play rugby, football and cricket. Looking back, I think my cricket probably peaked when I was eleven or twelve; I made the Mid Glamorgan county team and played for local sides Llantwit Fardre and Hopkinstown. I fancied my chances as an all-rounder and wanted to be Ian Botham, although I was probably more of a Derek Pringle. My parents recall me trying to score a six off every ball, which I managed sometimes, but not always and apparently I was heartbroken if I got out for a duck. At Hopkinstown, I played with my cousin Gareth Hopkins and also Ceri Sweeney. I used to love spending time in Hopkinstown as all the kids would be out playing cricket and there were some exceptional cricketers at the club, such as Jonathan Hughes, who went on to play county cricket for Glamorgan. Hopkinstown was cricket mad; it was like being in the Caribbean.
On the football pitch, when I was playing for Llantwit Fardre and Pontyclun, I played against Robert Earnshaw a few times and even then he had a distinctive goal celebration. I was always confident in my ability at sport, especially rugby, and I desperately wanted to play at the top level like my heroes.
My secondary school, Bryn Celynnog, was one of the best around when it came to its track record of producing top-level players. In particular, it had a real tradition of producing top Welsh rugby players: Neil Jenkins, Paul John, Greg Prosser, Andrew Lamerton and Chris Bridges all went there and I couldn’t wait to get started. My brother had told me that we would have to do a gym test in our first PE lesson, so I trained beforehand to get the best result I could. We were really lucky because the sport department laid on plenty of sport, and the teachers were great at giving their time. In our first PE lesson, my teacher, Mike McCarthy, gave a great talk to us about the sporting heritage of the school and how many internationals they had produced in many sports. It was hugely exciting and being a bit of a sports anorak I knew all the answers about who had been capped from the school so it was a great start for me.
I loved training and playing to try and get better. Martin Sallam, our other PE teacher, had a rule that you could only kick the ball in rugby inside your own 22. It was great for skill development and it made us play the ball. Just as had been the case with Gareth Williams at my junior school, I’m sure that had an impact on my game. We played the local Welsh language school, Llanhari, who had a really good team, and were well beaten, but David Evans, a maths teacher and a huge Pontypridd fan, came up to me afterwards and told me that I had played particularly well because I had never given up. At that age, that was as important to me as Gareth Williams’ advice on fair play or Martin Salaam insisting we only kick in the 22. I always had total belief in my ability but, just like anyone else, I needed some encouragement. The other coaches I had as a kid were at Beddau RFC. Wayne Yoxall and Gareth Morris put in so much work on our behalf organising games and training and giving up their time. The club put on some great tours and fixtures.
Llanhari were the best school in the district and it was always a good derby against them. In our game against them the following year, all the boys were really up for the game, but we found ourselves twenty points down at half-time and I was determined to do all I could to get us back into the game. Ten minutes into the second half, one of their best players got hold of the ball. I lined him up to put in the big tackle that I hoped would galvanise our team and smashed into him, landing my shoulder into his hipbone. I knew I had hurt my shoulder straight away, but I was determined not to go off and played on until the final whistle. We lost heavily. My shoulder was still giving me trouble the next day, so I went to the doctor with my Dad and the X-ray showed that I had suffered a fractured shoulder, which meant I was out of sport for ten weeks…
One disappointing thing at comprehensive school was that there was no district rugby team until Under-14 and even when I got to that age group, we only played a couple of matches a year. I wanted more, but would have to wait until I reached the Under-15s, which was the really big year for rugby. Although I was the school captain, I didn’t captain the district team, but was pack leader. I was quite a prolific try scorer – I scored a hat trick of tries in a Pontypridd Under-14 game against Bristol. There was a combined district team for players who were born in 1980 or later and we were taken to a tournament in Orthez, France. I went two years in a row and we reached the semi-finals of the tournament, in which each match lasted twenty minutes, ten minutes each way. The refereeing was poor and in the semi-final we got three players sin-binned. There was a big crowd watching and the supporters became really aggressive, began to chant ‘noir, noir’ (because we played in black) and started to throw oranges at us. Looking back, the supporters were really rowdy, but it was a great experience and on reflection, really funny.
My one overriding feeling at this time was one of desperation: I was desperate not to miss out on any games. Each match usually had a bigger meaning in terms of selection for higher honours, and the Under-15s the next year represented the beginning of the chance to play for Wales Under-16s. On the second tour, me and my friend Blaidd Jenkins, got jumped by a group of French kids on our way back from the town, it was about ten against two in terms of numbers and they hit us with their belts and fists. We had a bit of a scuffle and then ran in opposite directions, but it all turned out okay in the end. My rugby trips to France have always been quite eventful.
The next year saw the seven school teams from the district enter into trials for Pontypridd Under-15 schools’ side. Going to the trials I remember looking around trying to size up the competition in my position and feeling desperate to show how good I was and that I deserved a place in the team. I performed strongly in the trials and was selected for the schools side. We had an excellent team and showed everyone what we were capable of when we thrashed Cardiff 87–0. It was around this time that I started to get regular mentions in the newspapers. After Pontypridd Under-15s had thrashed Newport 53–7, one local paper praised my ‘non-stop performance and high work-rate.’ I scored two tries in a 24–12 victory over Swansea in the semi-final of the Dewar Shield, which we went on to win, beating Pontypool in the final. After the semi-final, one Swansea supporter told a local newspaper that I was better than Mervyn Davies. I won Player of the Year for Pontypridd Schools and there were some great names on that trophy. It felt natural to be involved in these teams; it felt like the next step towards my overall aim of playing for Wales. I was always really pleased to be selected, but to a large extent I didn’t appreciate it because I was always looking forward to the next goal. My mother, however, was incredibly proud and kept all the cuttings from anything that was reported in the papers and magazines.
When you go to comprehensive school, you don’t always make friends for life, but when I was fifteen, I walked into my French class and met my future wife, Lucy. Our French class had been moved to a new room and we happened to sit next to each other. I had already seen her once before, walking with her friends to a school disco when I was being driven to training. I thought then that I would like to get to know her! When we got chatting I found I really loved being in her company; she has such a vibrant personality and I thought she was beautiful inside and out. We became good friends and two friends of ours, Ross Maisey and Cerys Evans, acted as go-betweens to set us up on a date. That was fifteen years ago and we have been pretty much inseparable ever since.
Out on the pitch, a familiar face started attending rugby sessions. Gethin Jenkins and I had been at infants’ school together and, at the time, he was not your typical rugby player. He was a painfully quiet kid. Because Gethin was so quiet I could do all the talking and he didn’t appear to be doing much playing either out on the pitch. He was a flanker at that point, but just seemed to walk about and never looked like a future Welsh captain. Then, one day, we played against Llantwit Major for Beddau in a big game against the South Glamorgan champions and I realised that Gethin had just been watching all the other games, working out what he needed to do. This time, Gethin did get involved and he was absolutely amazing. That was obviously what a diet of four Mars Bars a day could do for you!
Gethin and I, along with Scot Yoxall from our school, played at Under-15 level for Mid Glamorgan, which was another part of the process towards selecting an Under-16 Wales’ team at the end of the following