Jason Leonard: The Autobiography - Jason Leonard

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to cope with.

      While I was at Saracens, I carried on working on building sites – helping out, doing the lifting, slowly learning a trade and earning enough money to allow me to train whenever I could. I know that a lot of people thought we were getting paid by clubs at the time, but we weren’t – we got our beer and kit paid for and there was transport to training, but that was it.

      When I wasn’t on site, I would be either fitness training in the gym or on the track, or rugby training. It all meant that I was extremely fit and quite lightweight for a prop (16 stone), so I tore around the pitch, causing as much trouble for the opposition as I could. That season we won all the games in the Second Division and were promoted to the First Division. Our results must have caught the eye of the selectors, because in 1988/89 I made it onto the bench for England U21 v Romania U21.

      I had a great time at Saracens. I remember once when we were on the bus driving back from a match and Tony Russ fell asleep. We always had a rule that there was no sleeping allowed on an away trip so we decided to punish him. He had these enormous, bushy Dennis Healey eyebrows so it seemed obvious that the best punishment was to shave one of them off. Unfortunately, it was decided that I was the best person to perform this task, so I crept up on Tony slowly, clutching a razor. I had got to within an inch of his face when he opened the eye I was about to shave above and said, ‘I wouldn’t, Leonard. I really wouldn’t. Not if you ever want to play for Saracens again.’ Needless to say I didn’t.

      Getting into the First Division at a London club also meant I was a contender for a place in the London divisional squad. I played in only one London game, when we took on the South-West at Imber Court. I ended up in the team because Judge was unwell. As soon as I heard about his illness and the fact that they needed a replacement, I raced across town to make it for the start of the game. It was well known that England were looking for a successor to Paul Rendall at the time and that they had tried to find a successor in 1989 without any luck.

      Paul was the best prop around and England knew that they would need a good replacement for him, or risk the huge advantage they had in the forwards – with the likes of Paul Ackford, Wade Dooley, Mike Teague, Peter Winterbottom and Dean Richards. They knew that they couldn’t afford to let the front row weaken or they’d weaken the whole scrum and the line-out – the platform of the English game. They had to find a good replacement.

      I watched Judge carefully, trying to set myself up as a possible replacement for him. He was a great scrummager and the best line-out supporter (these were the days where you didn’t lift, you ‘supported’). The difference between supporting and lifting was very subtle – it was basically all in the shape of the hands. The easiest way to lift was to grab handfuls of your second row’s shorts and hoist him into the air. Therefore, to prevent this, referees insisted that you had an open hand at all times. If a ref caught you with your fists clenched you’d be pulled for lifting.

      Judge realized this early on and had developed the very impressive skill of lifting with an open hand. It was very effective and Judge was the best at it in the world. The crafty old sod wouldn’t teach me what to do, so I had to watch him carefully. Because we were in direct competition for places, he didn’t want to give me too much information about the task. I’d ask him ‘Am I doing this right?’ and he’d say ‘Yes’ although I knew I wasn’t. As soon as I was established in the side, and when I was in the World Cup squad, he started helping me a lot more, explaining that you could get away with lifting by catching the jumper under his last rib and his chest side on, and just support him under the rib cage, so you could do it open-handed and therefore not be officially lifting.

      It used to be funny during games. The second row would be in mid-air, and the referee would know that there was lifting going on. He’d think ‘I can see that bugger’s lifting, but his hand’s open so there’s nothing I can do.’

      This was the sort of stuff you had to pick up along the way from the experienced guys. After London and a brief flirt with England U21 came England B. I was selected to play for them against Fiji, at Headingley. Geoff Cooke, the England manager, was keen to try out younger props, so Mark Linnett and Andy Mullins played for the first team, while Jeff Probyn and I propped against Fiji B. The match went well and it was good to play alongside Jeff. When Cooke called me up and said that I was down for the next representative game – England B v France B, away – I knew that I was in the reckoning and that one day they might take a chance on me in the first team.

      I always imagined that hearing I’d been selected to play for England for the first time would be special. I thought I’d answer the phone one day and the manager would grandly announce that I’d been chosen to represent my country, how proud I should be of myself and that he’d congratulate me. I even thought I might shed a tear. I never imagined that it would be Lawrence Consiglio, telling me that he’d read in the paper that I’d been selected. ‘Hello mate,’ he said. ‘It says in the paper you’re playing for England. You never told me.’

      ‘That’s ’cos I didn’t know. Thanks for telling me,’ I replied, and suddenly I was an international player.

      After that call, there were loads more, as people saw the papers and talked to other people. I had relatives, friends and rugby mates on the phone, all congratulating me and telling me how pleased they were. I don’t remember feeling anything at the time except surprise. I was amazed that I’d had no letter telling me about my selection, and I thought it was odd that all these people knew before me. I had wanted to be the one to tell Mum and Dad, not the other way round. In the end, I thought I’d better go and check for myself, so I headed off down to the paper shop. Sure enough, the squad for the 1990 tour to Argentina was listed, and in the four props there was a J. Leonard from Saracens Rugby Club. It had to be me.

      The day was full of phone calls and questions as everyone I’d ever known called up to say ‘well done’. I spent the whole day hoping for something from the RFU confirming it was true. I couldn’t believe that they weren’t going to tell me themselves. Was I going to find out all the arrangements for the trip and the Test team from the papers as well?

      People think I’m exaggerating when I talk about what it was like back then, but it really was that bad. It was as if the selectors thought that their job was finished once they picked the side. I understand that if you’ve been selected, you’ll find out soon enough, but when it’s your first cap, it would be nice if they could mark it in some way by telling you before everyone else. Still, I suppose they knew the players would find out somehow, so they didn’t worry too much about telling us.

      At least I didn’t get a ‘2p or a 10p call’ – that’s the way they used to tell players whether they were in the team or not in the early 1980s. The selectors used to sit round a payphone at the Lensbury Club (remember, these were the days before mobiles). In front of them, they would have a list of the players they had selected, and those players who had not been selected. If you were selected, they would call you using a ten pence piece, and explain to you why you had been picked and what the arrangements were. If you hadn’t been picked, it was slightly different – they would use a two pence piece and before you could ask why you’d been dropped, the pips would go, the phone would cut off and the selectors would go back to the list and ring the next person.

      I eventually got a letter from the RFU which outlined the plans for the summer tour. We were going to Argentina, and would be the first English sports team to tour there since the Falklands War in 1982. No wonder the selectors didn’t want to tell me!

      The tour was to be headed up by Geoff Cooke, the England manager, and would be seven matches long, with two Tests. They were taking four props and were going to rest Paul Rendall, who was about 107 years old by this time. The selectors were desperate to find a replacement for him, so all the young props on the tour knew that this was their golden chance. Rendall was a big character in the England team at the time – he was known as ‘Judge’ because he performed that role in the kangaroo courts on tour. These courts were a regular feature of tours back in the amateur days and would be

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