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Gavin Henson: My Grand Slam Year. Gavin Henson
Читать онлайн.Название Gavin Henson: My Grand Slam Year
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007438181
Автор произведения Gavin Henson
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
As well as the sobering experience of hearing about my behaviour from the police, I also made a visit to see one of the senior Brains people to apologise. They had enjoyed brilliant publicity from their sponsorship of the Wales team, but this was the kind of stuff they could do without. I told them how sorry I was and offered to pay for the damage. It was a strange end to an amazing weekend. It’s not every day you are invited to take your fill of what was, literally, a piss up in a brewery. But then it’s not every day you win the Grand Slam.
Looking back, I think the key word in what we achieved was excitement. We play an exciting brand of rugby that gets us excited as players and that feeds into our fantastic support. The fans get excited watching our style of play and that, in turn, gives us an extra lift again. Basically, our game-plan is to attack from anywhere on the field. There are no rules. No restrictions. In my view, it’s the best way to play rugby and it’s great to be involved in a group with that mentality. With the Ospreys, and with most of our rivals in the Six Nations, things are more structured. The players are programmed to kick in certain areas of the field, to drive it through the forwards in other parts, and to only attack when they get into the danger areas. It’s how most teams play nowadays. But with Wales we are encouraged to attack from behind our own goal-line if we feel there is an opportunity.
It’s the type of rugby I always wanted to play as a kid, with the emphasis on running and passing. But because I’ve always been able to kick the ball a long way, most of the teams I’ve been involved with over the years have wanted me to use that ability – even when it often went against the grain. Of course, I love kicking the ball because it’s one of my strengths. But given the choice, I’d far rather be part of an adventurous running side that keeps the ball in hand.
A huge influence on this Welsh style is our skills coach, Scott Johnson. Scott’s an Australian but he has blended his own methods from his background with the traditional Welsh strengths of handling and passing to produce a very fast, very fluid style of rugby. I think Scott is a revolutionary thinker on the game, someone ahead of his time and it’s vital that Welsh rugby hangs onto him for the future. If he was lured away from us then it would be a massive blow.
We train with the same approach and that means when we play Tests we are not afraid of making mistakes. It’s a style of rugby that requires both good skills and a high level of fitness throughout the team. Every player has to be able to time his running onto the ball, be able to give and take a pass, and have the endurance and stamina to keep doing that up and down the field for the full 80 minutes. In some teams, counter-attacking feels unnatural to the players and they tense up instead of opening their shoulders and really going for their passes. With Wales, there is a fluidity to it all that makes it very effective and hard to defend against.
As regards the future, then I think Wales simply have to carry on playing this way in order to build on our success. We haven’t got the players to win against the major teams by playing a tight, slow-paced game and hope to grind teams down through our forwards. It has to be high tempo and high risk.
In so many of our Grand Slam matches we won because we attacked from deep and got in behind teams. Once we broke their first line of cover then it meant their forwards were not able to make heavy collision tackles on our forwards. Instead, they were having to turn back and scramble. If the opposition isn’t able to make those heavy, aggressive hits then we have the momentum and with our good handling we can keep movements going by passing in contact until we score. It’s simple, really, but not easy to get right. For a start you need players with good hands and big lungs. Each player has to support on the shoulder of the player ahead of him and then be able to use the ball wisely when he gets it. That goes for all the forwards as well as the backs. If you can’t keep up, then you can expect to get a row in the team meetings. No rules. No restrictions. But no hiding places, either.
I had dreamed about playing rugby for Wales ever since I was little kid and part of that dream was winning the Grand Slam. The dream became reality on 19 March 2005 when I was 23 years old. It was the first Welsh Grand Slam since 1978 and although many of the supporters in Cardiff on the day of the Ireland game could remember 1978, for me it was something I had only read about, or seen the clips on TV. When Phil Bennett led Wales to that previous Slam, my father, Alan, was 20 years old and my mother, Audrey, would have been 21. I was born four years later on 1 February 1982 at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend.
I was their first child and two years later my sister, Sarah, arrived. Dad has always led a very active life. He played rugby and since he left school he has worked as a felt roofer. It’s his own business but he began working for my grandfather, Glyn, until my grandpa’s knees went and forced him to pack up. That allowed me to have a go when I left school. I managed to stick it for six months but that was long enough. Rugby’s a breeze compared to laying felt roofs which is proper work. One of my main aims in being a professional rugby player is to earn enough money to allow my dad to retire, in order to save his knees from giving way as my grandpa’s did.
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