LITMIR.BIZ

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of the Celtic League and more importantly I was enjoying my rugby there under the coaches, Lyn Jones and Sean Holley. I had no real desire to leave, even if I could have got maybe £30,000-a-year more by linking up with a French or English side. I felt very settled with the Ospreys and keen to remain there.

      Eventually, an agreement was reached and I signed a new contract with the Ospreys. Pete had come over to Paris and I put pen to paper in a room in the team hotel. It was a four-year contract which ties me to the region until I am 27. A few of my team-mates, who had only signed two-year deals, were amazed I had committed myself for four years. But for me, it was relief. I don’t have to worry about my future for a while. The Swansea experience taught me that is much better to be in work and secure, than out of work and worrying about where your next pay packet is coming from. I also wanted to show my commitment to the region by pledging my future to them. They had shown a lot of faith in me by giving me regular rugby and I wanted to repay that trust.

      After we had beaten France, we flew back to Cardiff on the Sunday and life could not have been sweeter. I was in the middle of this incredibly exciting journey with Wales, my regional future with the Ospreys had been sorted, and I was seeing Charlotte. Even without the half a dozen boys who were on Wales duty, the Ospreys continued to win during February and into March. They beat the Borders 34–10 at The Gnoll in Neath, gained an impressive 16–12 victory away in Dublin against Leinster, and then hammered the Newport Gwent Dragons, 30–0, at Swansea’s St. Helen’s ground. But while the Ospreys were homing in on one championship, most of my thoughts were on another. If we could beat Scotland, then we would be in a really strong position to face Ireland at home in what most people expected would be a Grand Slam decider for both countries.

      We had a 15-day gap between the game in Paris and our trip to Murrayfield to meet Scotland which gave us all plenty of time to recover. All, that is, except Alfie, whose broken thumb had ruled him out of the remainder of the championship and cast something of a shadow over his Lions chances. Thankfully, though, Alfie stayed within the group as a non-playing captain and he remained a massive influence.

      Scotland were going through a rough patch which they showed few signs of emerging from. They had been white-washed in the 2004 championship and although they had gained credit for their spirited performance in Paris in the opening round of 2005 the game had still ended in another defeat. The following week the Scots had been badly beaten at home by Ireland and even though they managed to scrape past Italy in round three the match had been an absolute stinker. We all knew, though, that Wales had a pretty poor record at Murrayfield in recent years and those of us used to going up to Edinburgh and Glasgow in the Celtic League had often found life difficult.

      In the build-up, the big stress from the coaches and the management was that Scotland always came out with a big first 20 minutes. So long as we could contain their fire in that opening period, we felt we had the superior skills and extra fitness to win the game. As it turned out, we were just oozing confidence after beating France and in the opening minutes at Murrayfield almost everything we tried came off. Instead of a raging fire the Scots weren’t able to create a single spark. The truth is that we had won that game by half-time. We were 38–3 up at that stage and most of us switched off and started thinking about the Ireland match.

      We had the best possible start with a try after just four minutes. It was a cracking one, too. Ryan Jones started it deep in our own half when he burst between two Scots – Stuart Grimes and Scott Murray – who tried to tackle him. The move was taken on by Kevin Morgan, Gethin Jenkins and Rhys Williams before Martyn Williams did brilliantly to put Ryan in for the touchdown. I was just behind Ryan and could tell we were going to score. But I was half-hoping he might get tackled so that I could claim the glory. That’s how confident we all felt. As it was, Ryan finished off what he had started.

      It proved to be the start of something really big for Ryan. He not only ended the season turning up on the Lions tour in New Zealand as a replacement, but played in both the Second and Third Tests against the All Blacks. He had a storming game against Otago just after his arrival and his whole impact on the tour was massive – huge enough to make him one of the biggest successes on the trip.

      But what people probably didn’t know that day in Edinburgh was that just a few minutes before Ryan was charging over for the try, he was being violently sick in the changing rooms. Nobody batted an eyelid because he does it before almost every game. I have never seen a guy get so nervous before matches. It doesn’t really make much difference what the game is, either. It can be a fairly routine Celtic League match for the Ospreys and Ryan will still be spewing. What makes it even worse for him is that he doesn’t really eat anything on the day of the game and yet he’s still spewing! It can’t be good for him. It’s nuts.

      Now that he’s a big star for the Lions, I’m wondering whether or not Ryan will be able to control his stomach movements. I teased him a little bit after he made his Wales debut by asking him whether or not he was still planning to be sick before Ospreys games. It was the same after he played for the Lions. ‘Don’t you think you should stop spewing before Wales games now?’ He agreed it was overdue. But he’s a great guy, a fantastic back row forward, and despite all his pre-match nerves he’s an extremely confident person about his own ability.

      Scotland actually put us under a bit of pressure after Ryan’s try. We were well stretched down our left-hand side but their outside-half, Dan Parks, chucked out a wild pass to no-one in particular. Rhys Williams snatched it out of the air and almost had the time to jog up their end to score under the posts. 14–0 to us and we knew we were still only warming up. Poor old Parks had a nightmare match, one of those days when everything he touched finished in a horrible mess. He was eventually substituted and I remember feeling very sorry for him as his own fans were booing him when he touched the ball and cheering when he was taken off. It’s not nice when you hear that kind of treatment given to any player. I’ve got to know Dan from chats after matches and he’s a sound guy who gives his all. You would think supporters would be aware that an international player is not going out of his way to be deliberately awful. In fact, I’ve never liked to hear players get booed when they are off their game. It happened towards the end of last season for my Wales team-mate Ceri Sweeney at the Newport Gwent Dragons. Ceri was going through a bad patch and the Dragons fans turned against him. I just don’t understand that. What kind of benefit does it give your team if you boo one of your own players every time he touches the ball? If that happened to me one day with the Ospreys, it would be the day I would consider moving on.

      That might sound a bit extreme, but it’s true. The fans are the reason I like playing rugby in front of big crowds, rather than just for my own amusement before two men and a dog. It’s entertaining supporters that gives me a real buzz. If I’m thinking of watching Manchester United then I like to check the line-ups to see whether or not Cristiano Ronaldo is playing. If he is, then I get excited. That’s how I would like people to react to me as a rugby player. I would love it if fans of the Ospreys or Wales think that way about me – that my name on the team-list makes a big difference to how they view the game. I want to have the reputation of an entertainer, like Ronaldo. I want people to have the urge to watch me because they are not quite sure what I’m going to do next. If my own fans booed me then I don’t think I’d be able to cope.

      I was actually having a quiet game in that first 40 minutes in Edinburgh. There was no need to do much else than master the basics. We were so slick in our passing and so instinctive in our movement that Scotland were left chasing shadows. After Rhys had scored, we added a penalty and then created another eye-catching try for Shane Williams with Martyn Williams’ handling skills again prominent in the move. Chris Paterson, another of the Scottish guys I get on well with, put them on the scoreboard with a penalty, but we were only midway through the half and it was already 24–3.

      We went straight back onto the attack and Tom Shanklin ran through Rory Lamont to set up a fourth try for Kevin Morgan. Now the Scots looked very panicky every time we ran at them. Dwayne Peel, who creates so much danger when he suddenly takes off from around the fringes, left the Scottish defenders in his wake with another darting run and Kevin had a second try and our fifth. It was 38–3. It wasn’t even half-time. It was all over.

      I was aware that my input had been fairly minimal. I hadn’t scored and I hadn’t

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