Jason Leonard: The Autobiography

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‘Prop,’ I replied.

‘Blimey, you’re fit for a prop. Bloody fit,’ he added, looking impressed. Then he looked at his watch. ‘You were spotted in Barking Park Road five minutes ago. That’s a mile away. You’ve just run a five-minute mile with no clothes on, no shoes and in four inches of snow.’

It was at this point that I realized that the little old lady had seen the other guy who’d gone running in the opposite direction. It was a shame to have to tell the copper as he was so impressed with my fitness, but I did tell him in the end. He laughed, swung the car round and we went off to the police station. By the time we got back there, they’d picked up the other guy and took us both back to the club. They marched us into the club and said, ‘Does anyone know where these boys’ clothes are?’ All the guys in the clubhouse just looked up at the ceiling. The police prodded the ceiling with their truncheons, one of the tiles shifted and down fell all our clothes, so we got dressed and bought the coppers a beer.

The fun side of rugby still appeals to me and although the sport has become more professional while I’ve been involved, I still think that the social side of the game is important – rugby won’t be rugby the day that opponents don’t go out for a drink with one another after playing. The sport will have changed for the worse when guys who battle like hell on the pitch can’t socialize off it. It’s different when you’re playing for the Lions or England so it’s important to keep in touch with the club game. At least it is for me. And I know I’d be a poorer person without the guys at Barking.

CHAPTER TWO A Step Up (#ulink_bc7ec112-1bb7-5caa-92fe-84116036e05d)

Barking was a great club for me to start my rugby career in. It gave me everything I wanted, and more. But in the end, by the time I was 19 years old and had experienced two hard years in the first team, both I, and all my mates at Barking, knew that it was time for me to move on.

The guys at Barking were very good about helping me to find the best move after it became clear that it was time for me to leave, just as they had protected me the year previously and had urged me not to leave too soon.

I think that many people at the club were concerned about me leaving too soon and being put in the U21s, where I’d be likely to learn less about the real world of adult propping than I would at Barking where at least I was gaining invaluable experience against old, wizened, wily, gnarled props. Playing in the first team at Barking gave me a streetwise edge which would help me to cope later, when I came up against experienced internationals.

So I was 19 before I decided that it was time to move on. I’d already played a couple of U21 games for Saracens on an invitation basis, and I liked the club. They were in the second rather than the first, but I still liked the atmosphere and the people down there. The only other club that I had thought about joining was Wasps, but the England props Jeff Probyn and Paul Rendall were well established there, so I wouldn’t have a chance of getting into the first team until they retired.

I liked Saracens because there was a good chance of me making it into the first team quickly and, although it was more serious than Barking, there was still an element of fun about the club which appealed to me. It was then a small club with lots of people who’d been around for years, so there was a great community spirit and a friendliness about the place which reminded me of Barking. I loved it and everything it stood for. It was a good, honest club full of hard-working people. There was nothing glamorous about it but there was a lovely atmosphere down there, and a feeling of everyone pulling in the same direction and working towards the same goals. Bramley Road was a great little stadium – even though the locals used to walk their dogs across the pitch during the day, so you’d be knee deep in dog shit during training sessions.

Saracens first approached me when they saw me playing county rugby and they invited me along. After the introductory couple of matches for the U21s, I took them up on the offer of a place and headed down to Bramley Road. The timing of my arrival was extremely lucky for me, but not for the regular prop, a guy called Richie Andrews, who went off to get married to Di – and I stepped in to fill in for him in his absence.

While he was saying ‘I do’, I sneaked in and stole his place; while he was on honeymoon, I perfected the role; and by the time he got back, I was a permanent fixture in the team. Luckily, we’re the best of mates now, but he can’t have been too pleased at the time.

In my first game for Sarries firsts, against Bridgend, Tony Robinson, known as Robbo, was playing tight head and was completely mauled by his opposite number. I remember afterwards, Tony Russ, the coach, said to him, ‘You useless lump, you were beaten by a complete nobody.’ Robbo was really embarrassed at the time, but was relieved later to discover that the ‘nobody’ turned out to be Mike Griffiths who was selected to tour with the Lions at the end of the season. Robbo took great pride in reminding Tony of his words when the Lions squad was announced.

When Richie Andrews came back from his honeymoon, he played tight head and I kept the loose-head spot. It had been a quick progression from playing casually at Barking to running out for Saracens, and I knew I was extremely young to be a Division Two prop, but I was ready – I had always been big, had always played a few years above my age and I’d had a couple of years of playing full-on adult rugby so I knew what to expect and what I would have 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.