The Duratus Mind - Dylan Hartley England and Northampton Rugby Captain

The Duratus Mind - A podcast exploring all things mindset and motivation.  Gaz, a former Special Forces Sergeant Major but now performance consultant, opens up his network to try and understand what motivates some to risk so much, why some are so driven, and what it really takes to achieve success in any sector.

In this episode Dylan Hartley, one of the England rugby's most successful captains uncovers all he knows about making it in elite sport, what drove him, how he dealt with disappointment and his biggest challenges. This is a mindset and motivation masterclass.  

Follow Dylan on Instagram @dylanhartley
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Follow Gaz on Instagram @Duratus_UK

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:35

I have to sweat it. That's cool. I trust you. Thank you. Right. Episode 22, I think, or 21. I'll check back, Dylan. Dylan Hartley, international rugby legend. I'm going to put that one out there. How'd you feel about that?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

That's a bad start. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Well, maybe. Well, for me, um, I would certainly say that. Um, doing a bit of digging the other day, I sort of saw your success rates as the as the captain, and you're right up there with one of the most successful England captains in in its history. So you can't argue with facts, mate. So you might not like it, but I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I have to take it then. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

No, so uh no, thanks for coming on the the podcast today, mate. Um, the Duratus Mind. In a nutshell, what I try and do is understand why certain people have had success in their fields, what they've done to get there, um, and we try and translate it into other people with regards to what they've got to do to do that to in their field. So I'm gonna try and scratch around a lot of stuff and we'll just see where it goes, mate. Just keep it loose.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Sounds good. I just need to uh apologize to our listeners. I'm a massive mouth breather. We're just talking about this beforehand. I feel like I've got to hold my breath when talking, and then after I've finished the sentence, I need to pause and move the microphone. So if anyone hears me breathing during this, it's because I've got a buggered nose.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

I'll keep kicking you under the camera, mate. But no, you're all good, mate. Um, also need to say we are absolutely not sponsored by Through Doc, but uh uh Dylan is representing today, and I'm sure the lads, uh Stas and Louie, will be happy with that, mate. So uh good.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

They keep me warm.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

They they sure do. Uh that again, thanks as well, mate, for uh inviting me to your absolutely beautiful home. This is uh uh an awesome place. So uh yeah, uh thanks for that. It's genuinely appreciated. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I've got to um I've got to feed you before you leave as well.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

I I can I can roll with that. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

I'm not gonna lie, I'm not preparing it. Mrs. Hartley's actually in the kitchen right now. But no, it's good good to have you on I'm uh a genuine uh fan of the pod. Uh I don't watch on YouTube, but I was just saying to you before, like the amount of podcasts that get thrown your way these days and books, everyone's like, You gotta listen to this, gotta read that. Um I try and tune in um whenever I get a kind of spare half hour or hour.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Humbling to hear that. Um mega appreciated that you say it as well. Um like I've said to a number of people, I was speaking to Chine's Reed a few weeks ago. Hers will be the next one that I push out. And this podcast is a bit selfish if I'm honest. It's for me, and the fact that other people listen is a massive bonus to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So um I'm not I'm not tuning in to hear you, I'm tuning in to hear your guests. Oh, that's true, that's true. I did actually see a snippet of um of her interview on um on on Instagram about the um the drink, and yeah, she caught her kind of reflection in the mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

She is a fascinating, and um we'll and we'll jump straight in actually because there's something she said about how young her thirst for success started, and that massively struck me. I again I'll this will be this will already have been out by the time we talk about it, but when she was 12 years old, she was travelling around the world competing in world championships on her own, and I was like, wow, I've got children that are nearly that age, and I can't imagine sending them on a plane to America to go and compete. That took a certain and it shows why she's so tough, I think. And so if you don't mind, we'll jump straight into your kind of early days of Dylan, if that's all right, and kind of what made the man you are kind of the foundations of of what was up, what was young life like for yourself, mate?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Uh rural New Zealand, um, kind of barefoot school, um, rugby ball and tow, uh middle of three boys, so kind of grew up fighting fighting my way up and you know competitive household. Um yeah, I just think rural life and and rugby kind of go part and parcel in in New Zealand. It's it's they they just kind of complement each other quite nicely. So um always helping mum and dad around where we had like a small holding. Um and then obviously at at school every kind of playtime, lunchtime, rugby was played, so it's almost kind of ingrained. And you know, my my parents weren't even kind of real sporty or or rugby people, but because of the community and the country I grew up in, like rugby is almost forced upon you, yeah. You know, you know, your first kind of gift as a baby is is like an all-black shirt and a rugby ball. And I remember growing up, there's always this old leather rugby ball that you would always kick about and um we'd always kind of fight and and and play with that ball, but um it was never really forced upon me. It was almost kind of like your pair group at school, like I said before, playtime, lunchtime, would end up just playing, playing rugby. And then I got to about 10 years old, and um all my friends played for the local team, so I kind of tagged along and and that was kind of my way into rugby.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

Was there other sports you played, or was it rugby or nothing?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Um I didn't play any like kind of club sports, but again, rural, rural school New Zealand, you know, cross-country, triathlon, uh, you know, walking, hiking, all that sort of stuff. Every weekend we we spent outdoors hunting, fishing, uh, as kids growing up. Um, you know, mum played Bamington. Um, so I I'm actually okay at Bammington.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

So you you nearly made it in the badminton scene, is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Genuine. I I played to an alright level as a as a schoolboy, but then it got to a point where I was picking up dead legs and and things like that, and I kind of balancing time as a as a 13-14-year-old trying to do because we we lived out in the sticks as well. So to get into sports clubs and stuff like that, yeah, it was almost like an hour and a bit journey for for mum and dad to do school runs and and sports clubs. So got to a point where it was like, you know, what are you gonna play here? And and rugby was way better, it was it was popular, all my friends played it, you're in a team. Um, so I kind of committed to rugby and my badminton career kind of ended.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Oh, how different things could have been. We'll have to get it on one time, mate. I can I can swing a badminton. I'm gonna call it a bat just to wind people up.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Um you don't swing it, do you?

SPEAKER_03 7:15

Exactly. So uh we'll have to get it on sometime because uh yeah, that's uh I did not see that coming. Um well that it's interesting, it's Rotoru, isn't it? Is that that where you grew up? Um I've I've been to Rotorua. Um lovely smell. Yeah, well, I was about to come on to that. There's it there's an interesting story there. So I spent a few weeks travelling around New Zealand. We hired a car down south and went up north or vice versa, I can't remember. Um, and um popped into Rotorua to go see the the what they call it, they called it something like the Sulphur Wonderland or something like that. The geysers. The geysers. The geysers, yeah. The geysers. And um I come from a town just outside of Burton on Trent, which you'll probably never heard of, but it's where they brew all the beer in this country, basically. So the town stinks of potatoes, and so you get used to this smell that wafts around Burton. Growing up, it meant thought nothing of it, and it was the first place I'd been, I think, Rotoru, as well. I was like, oh, this smells a bit like home. Um pungent, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

The the irony in that is Northampton, we've actually got the uh the the Carlsberg factory here, yeah. And it stinks of um the that potato kind of smell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh so I left one smelly place for another. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Well, you smell smells like home. But I uh I remember being in Rotoru and genuinely when I was there. I mean, I was talking, probably talking about 2005, something like that, 2006. And I'm from uh a mining town, so it's quite a rough working class town. And Rotorua was I would I was I was there thinking this is a this is a man's town. That's gonna sound sexist. This is a man's town, it's quite a hard working, it felt a bit rough, if that if that's a fair comment, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah, but by New Zealand standards, it's it's quite I think it's a city, it's quite a big place, but it's kind of low socioeconomic, it's um kind of blue-collar, working class, and I'd say it's probably like Maori heartland. So all Maori mythology and and legend kind of is born there because of the sulphur and all the kind of myth and tale I kind of grew up around that that kind of Maori community um has like a heavy influence there. But there's kind of like gang culture there and stuff like that. But um, you know, I'm I'm not gonna um plead to to be from anything like that. I grew up in a really good kind of family, stable family in a in a rural community. Um, and like I said, I bust into town um went from like the the small kind of country school, but I bust into town um from 10, 11 years old to go to the like the the city school. So I had a real nice balance, you know. I kind of had a good stable home life, but I I learned to kind of mix it with uh in in your words, kind of harder or maybe rougher kids in in town.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Yeah, um I mean I I'd put myself in that same bracket actually. Um so rugby took off, and then there was a there must have come a point when you took the leap into you know making it professional elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

No, I've do you know what it didn't take off um 11, 12 years old. Um it being a passion of mine, like most Kiwi kids, and um I think when I was about 10 or 11, kind of 1995, Jonah Lomu, you know, being in New Zealand, putting New Zealand on the map, um iconic rugby player just kind of inspired a generation, inspired me to kind of want to play the game. Um everyone at school was talking about Jonah. Um and then you know, trying to make the first 15 at intermediate school, which is 11, 12 years old, and then trying to make the you don't play first 15 at high school until you're 15, 16, 17 years old. Yep. Um so just trying to make teams, it was ultra competitive. I I can imagine it's trying to make like the the the football team at school here. Um there's a queue of kids signing up for trials and that, and I actually missed out on trials early. And um, you know, those sort of like I look back, they were kind of probably formative experiences. Imagine so, you know, not being good enough to make the team. And then you you think like when you go to especially as a rural kid coming into town, I didn't have the network of kids I'd gone to primary, you know, I didn't have that kind of friendship group, so I saw sport as like um like a way of acceptance or getting in with the the inn kids or and and creating that friendship group. So um quite formative, you know, missing out on a couple rep teams and and not being you know, basically told you you're not good enough, yeah um, go away and work. And I remember like I've always been like a fat kid as well. Um, you know, mum, mum's Aleph, uh a baker, yeah, um three boys, yeah. You know, it was competitive at the dining table in our house. Jeez, like you just wolf it down just to get to to try and get second portion, you know what I mean? But um I remember at 13, 14 actually starting to go for runs and things like that. Um and when I look back at it, I I'd you know, I don't see many 13, 14-year-old kids out running now, but even as like a fat kid, I'd run down the road. I'd probably only do a couple of kilometres or something, but just the discipline at one point to start running all the time. Um and yeah, I I started making started making teams and and things like that. And um at 16 um I was kind of playing for Rotoru Boys High first 15, and that was kind of like a big deal. It was a nationally renowned rugby school, you know. We'd been to national finals and we'd produced all blacks and and things like that. So playing first 15 rugby was um quite a big experience, I think. Um and it got to a point at the end of the season where I wasn't focusing on on school, and mum, mum and dad are kind of threatened, you know, you need to focus on your schoolwork, you can't just play rugby and all that sort of stuff. And mum actually pulled the pin on um, she said, if you're not gonna start going to classes, I'm not gonna pick you up from training. And because we lived like 45 minutes out, um, that was a hell of a threat, you know, it was a hell of a walk home, and because I didn't want to miss out on rugby training and probably get the questions fired at me, why can't you come to training? I went to training and I actually tried walking home one day. Um, I didn't get very far, you know. Once I got out of town on the way to like where we lived, yeah, you know, someone in the community saw me. I was basically hitched a ride. But um, my mum kind of threatened, you know, should take away the rugby if I didn't buck up at school. So being being kind of um the entrepreneur I am, I kind of looked to the school newsletter, something kind of shot out at me one day. It was like school exchange to it was to England, the school exchange, and I was like, oh, it's a bit of me. Um it the the year is from here to here, and it meant I'd miss my exams, so I wouldn't have to commit to doing my exams in New Zealand, which meant I had no pressure. Yeah, yeah. So I signed up for this thing and um I got accepted, but then the the bill came through for it, it was like 25 or 30 grand. I don't know if that was pound or New Zealand dollars, but it was a hell of a money. And um my mother dad were like, we ain't paying for that. And um, so it was like uh it took a bit of wind out of the sails, and then um my uncle actually uh uh rung up and said if you want to come to England, because my uncle lives in uh just outside of Tunbridge Wells down south, said we can come to the school um and go to school with your cousins. I was like, Yeah, all right. And he's like, Oh, they've got a rugby academy as well, so so bring your boots. So I basically did the school exchange um at 16 years old without paying the fee. And I went to the local community college and um joined the local rugby team, you know, got a new group of mates, you know, because you it's kind of easy when you join a sports team, you basically inherit um a group of people. Yep. Um and yeah, never really looked back, kind of flew flew into it from there.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

So how old were you? Came over, did you say?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I was 16, yeah. And I'd I'd never left the country, which is fucking weird. Like if my daughter came to me at 16 now and said I'm gonna go to New Zealand, yeah. This is I'd be like whining your neck in.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

This is what this is what I mean. And this is people underestimate, I think, that kind of step, you know. But you know, I I mean I joined the military, I left home at 18. I was a I was a man, really, on paper. You know, but my my children, I was speaking to about Sineise Reed, you know, at 1213, she was jetting around the world competing at the world championships without a parent. And it just blows my mind. And you can understand why people learn from those experiences. Or now I'm all about telling people. You can only get experience by having experiences, there's no shortcut. Um, and so the more experiences you get, and experiences like that come into a different country. And we're not talking, we're not talking going to Australia, are we? We're talking about the other side of the world from your family and everything you knew, your support network, you've all these things that people would be hammering you for for well-being, you know, have that support network around you, but you've come to the other side of the world. Yeah, there's some family there that you know, you've got cousins that you know. I'm imagining you're not seeing a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

No, this this is a weird thing. I I obviously knew who they were, and I've met them probably twice when they visited New Zealand, but um, even before I got to Heathrow, I remember going through LA, and it wasn't the days where we got put in like a transit lounge. It was like you went through, collected your bags, then booked back in. Yeah, I'm like, fucking hell. The last last time I saw my mum and dad, they got me onto the plane, they waved me goodbye, and then I'm like halfway around the world. I had no idea where I was, what I was doing, like boarding passes, all this stuff. And you know, this is before like I even had a phone. I didn't even have a phone. There's no like 3G, 4G, there's no Google when you get there. Well, there's there's no there's no Google to help. So what do you do? You've got to talk your way around, you've got to stop someone that's gonna help. And you know, maybe the I think someone kind of trying to say excuse me to someone when they're walking, like they don't stop. This is America as well. So you find someone that works there, and then you find your way. And then I turn up at Heathrow, and um it sounds like nothing, but when you're 16 years old, it sounds massive.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

I I actually, as a dad, you know, I sit there and think it sounds massive, and I think this is the difference in some people's experiences where these kind of events for years afterwards you're creating relationships, forcing yourself into conversations, whereas now kids are sat on computers not interacting with people. I think this is the difference, if I'm honest.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

100%. And then I get I get to Heathrow and I'm like, shit, what do my uncle and auntie look like? And you know, again, I find them, and and you're right, I had like a comfort blanket of I went home to a really nice home environment, great cousins, great uncle and auntie, and they sent me off to school. So I went from like one you know, a good environment to another, um, with a little bit of learning on the way.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

But uh again, as a New Zealand lad at the time in a English school, I mean that must have been, you know, you were the person that stood out, right? In some ways.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

For the fact that like um just culturally probably looked completely different, you know, it sounds ridiculous, but I used to go places and bare feet. Yeah. Like in New Zealand, we just grew up in bare feet. Even at high school, we'd go to the supermarket and bare feet, we'd drive cars and bare feet you'd fill up your car.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

You are definitely gonna stand out in Tunbridge Wells walking around in barefoot.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Well, it wasn't even Tumber, it was Crowborough, which was a smaller kind of um, it's not a village, but one up from that. But yeah, I I I went walking and bare feet and I wore board shorts, you know. Like I don't think people even had board shorts in England unless you you you surfed and you lived at the coast. I I remember like the snow, so in in Rotaroa, it never snowed. But I remember like buzzing out when I first saw the snow, and I went to school and and flip-flops and shorts when it was snowing and people couldn't believe it. But yeah, yeah, I just thought it was brilliant. Yeah, and then I fast forward like to a career of playing rugby, it snows, you hate this stuff, you know. My my love for the snow. Um, when you gotta roll in it and you get wet and you gotta um train in it, it's not should have been badminton.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah, no, definitely not badminton. But yeah, um I suppose it stood out, but it was fun, like it was a fun experience because again, I didn't have um a long-term view on actually playing rugby. Uh I'd come, I came to England for it might have been six to nine months. That was the plan. Um I can't remember the actual dates, but there was an end game. So I'd come, I'd dos about, have a bit of fun, make some friends, go to school, play rugby, then go back home. Um that's what happened.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

And so you you obviously joined the local school rugby squad. Um and I'm curious as to back in Rotarua, you were doing well, but it was it was challenging because the competitive environment, I'm sure, when you turned up at this school, um, how did you compare compete? Was it straight in at the were you high level at that point?

SPEAKER_01 20:25

It was funny because um I'd come from uh obviously the school I was at in New Zealand. Um we had the my rugby captain there was a guy called Liam Messon, who was at the time playing men's sevens rugby. Okay, so he'd come back to school dip in and out of playing first 15 rugby, then go off on the world circuit playing with the likes of Joan Olomu on the sevens. Incredible. So that was the level for me of like how good you had to get. Yeah, yeah, that's good. So I was playing with like future all blacks and future super rugby players, and I couldn't make the cut there. I wasn't quite good enough. Uh, whether I would have, I don't know. Um, so I came over to England and I was of a standard, I suppose, and then I was so excited. You know, my uncle sold it to me. The school's got this rugby academy, and um, my first day of school, I rocked up to to rugby academy training. You know, it's in it's in your your schedule, and I was I was looking forward to it. I've rocked up, and there's like seven other people there. I'm like, where is everyone? Like, if you had a rugby academy in New Zealand, you'd have people queuing down the block to to get into it. And um, you know, they all meant well, they all love the game, but it was like, uh, what should we do today? And I was like, is there no kind of training schedule? You know, what was I will do some scrummaging? It was like, oh, new guy, what what are you playing? I was like, prop. And look at me, I'm fat as fuck, and there's only one thing I can do, and that's prop. Um, so it was like, oh, you go there, you go there, and we've got like backs, we've got a couple backs, it's like you just go on the flank, and we haven't even got enough for an eight-man scrum. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, we're leaning on this machine. I'm just thinking, what the fuck's this? So it was it was a bit of a shock to the system culturally, um, in terms of the standard I'd been used to, and then um within you know, like a week, I'd been I'd played again, then I went for the county trials, and uh you know, I think when you're a New Zealand kid playing rugby in the south of England, it's almost like a northerner coming down south, you you stick out, yeah. Um, and I had an attitude towards the game. Um, and it was almost like coming from Rotora Boys. So it was a semi-professional. So I had a standard that I I played to and and it's quite vocal. And I think I must have stood out because I basically I I went through all the trials and I did all that stuff and I I climbed my way to like that England under 18s team. Yeah. Pretty sharpish. Amazing. So that was it. And then um I actually buggered off back to New Zealand, finished my term, uh, my school exchange, and then uh I was back home uh weighing up what to do with myself, and then my uncle got a letter from the the RFU, the England rugby union. He asked if he could open it, and I got offered a trial to go to South Africa with England under 19's team. So I had a decision right there. Um, do I go back to England, go on this trip to South Africa? If I do do that, I need to commit to trying to play in England. Um and I just reached out to a guy I knew at the Worcester, the Worcester Academy at the time and said, Can I come to Worcester? Can you sort something out? And he goes, I can't promise anything, but I can make sure you sort it out in the short term. So my mum and dad kind of for the first time sent me with a one-way ticket. Um and I'm kind of thankful that they kind of fronted the cost because they'd paid for a return flight, and they're not cheap flying to New Zealand, and that they dug deep and got me a one-way ticket to England. Um, kind of wish me luck on my journey. So uh there I am back at Heathrow, you know, a couple months later, and my uncle and auntie have picked me up and drove me to Worcester, and this time slightly different, you know, no cushity um detached house in uh the south of south of England. I'm in these like student halls, um, you know, literally with uh you call it a Bergen. Yeah, my big backpack, big rucksack, yeah. Got my big rucksack with my life's kind of possessions in it, and I'm in student halls. Um, I might have had a couple hundred quid that my mum and dad gave me. Um but that's where kind of life experience started for real.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Yeah, I know I bet. Uh, and so you've sort of full full throttle into pro rugby or semi-pro, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Can't call it pro because it wasn't paid. Yeah, I went there on a promise, and um this guy Graham Smith, who was the the coach or the academy manager, he was like, just fill out these forms. Um they were for like fuel expenses, like fill out the miles. And I I think I was getting like a couple hundred quid a month and living in student halls, and it was when um the students were on summer holidays. So me and this other guy, Richard Blaze, who's now a professional coach, um, we then went around busting um kind of student locks off. Um, you know, you got the communal kitchens, yeah. They some of them had padlocks on them, and we found ways to to kind of bust in and um we basically like robbed people's freezers and stuff. So we we were taking because we had no income. Yeah, yeah. We we we found a way to basically steal five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was good, and then um, you know, the promise of a contract actually came through, and we we were all there, there's about 10 of us, we're all on like four grand a year, and then we went to rented accommodation. And I actually worked this out recently because of um I've got to plug my book, yeah, um constantly. But uh, but I wrote my book, my book, and it made me think about this. But I had to pay 250 quid a uh month on rent, and we got paid 333 quid a month. So I had like 83 quid a month to live off. But like it made me like so thrifty, and you and you live to you know, you you find a way, yeah. So um the the robbing continued. The the rugby club we played for, we you know, we're taking all the eggs, the milk from the kitchen there, taking Luro, um, senior players like leaving any kit around, it was in my bag, it was on eBay. Um you know, and just learning how um, you know, like I laugh at the kids now. I even when I played in Northampton, um, if I need to go to town, I'll catch the bus to town. There's a bus stop opposite the club, it's far easier, yeah, cheaper to jump on the bus and go up town.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

So it's it's giving you sort of fundamental principles of th like thriftiness, probably isn't the word, but just efficient, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, thrifty. And then in the evenings, you know, I lived um with a couple other academy guys, and one of the older guys who owned the house, he was like an ex-player and he had businesses in town and he was always renovating. So in the evenings, we'd go do cash work for him, you know, like building work, and we loved it because we're getting double bubble. He'd buy us like dominoes, we'd get like pizza or Chinese takeaway for dinner, which meant we didn't have to spend money on dinner, and we're getting paid to work. So I don't know, like it just gave us or it gave me, and you know what? I've I've I'm still connected with the guys who are in that academy, and not all of them went on to be professional, but we've all got those um that foundation and experienced the same thing, and then it kind of coupled with um don't want to give him credit, but he's like this military um he came with a bit of a reputation, uh like a PT. Yeah. Or PTI, is that what you call it?

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Yeah, physical trainer, PT, yeah, I know exactly.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

And the shit that we did when I was like 17, 18, I kind of you know, like I had that rural upbringing as a kid, so I had a good engine and I had a good work ethic because always helping dad do jobs about the farm and that we're busy, but yeah, this PTI come in and he had us doing shit like we did like the whole stretcher carries, you know, tractor tire carries, um, what's the crawls? Um leopard crawls, mate, like the third degree fucking weeping burns on my knees. I remember like rocking up to um that that England under 19s training, and it was like all these kids came from like their private schools and stuff like that, and then me and the Worcester boys would turn up like covered in scrapes, yeah. People beat up when you turn up, and and we used to train against the men's team as cannon fodder. So, like this is when Worcester weren't even a premier club, yeah, they were like uh an aspiring premier club, beating up the academy. It was basically that like mauling sessions, especially as a Ford, it'd be like, right, you need to try and stop this mall, and then like we're just getting filled in like the whole time. But we learnt to fight.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

You can sit on the bench if you can bring them down, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yeah, well, mate, it was basically we want you to go in there and stop them, do what you gotta do. But like I I became this person as well, like I became that old guy, and if a young guy tried doing something, yeah, it's a challenge, yeah. It's a challenge. So we we basically went in, and I remember these um these physios at these age group teams um at England under 19s and that they were actually concerned for like our welfare. Like, what are they doing to you down there? Like you you can't play with these, you who's doing this to you? Yeah, but um abuse, yeah, like guys constantly brawling. Um but it was just it was just what happened in those days. So coupled with like those cool kind of formative life experiences, I've been thrifty and hustling and finding a way to you know, I needed money to get by, and even like boots, you know, I couldn't afford new boots, so we you know, duct tape them up and just carry on, and then when the opportunity to find a new pair of boots came about, you found them. Um size 11 I have those.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

This is the stuff that people don't ever see. So they'll they they will read all about it in the book, I'm sure. Um, but you know, they they see Dylan Hartley, England international captain, white shirt, they say, I'm pretty sure he's had a privileged upbringing to get to that place. Do you know what I mean? They will make that assumption, won't they? And the reality for almost everyone at the top of their game is no no no, they have grafted, you've put the hard yards in, you've put in the the time doing the difficult stuff for zero reward initially, but just for the passion of what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah, I didn't know that I'd end up where I did, and there's quite um there's quite uh to no to no one else, this is this is nothing, but to me it's quite powerful. Um it was a day before Skype and Facebook um and all that sort of stuff, but like staying in touch with my parents is quite hard. So I was like 17, 18 years old, living by myself in Worcester on the other side of the world, and um actually ran out of money. I I was getting my kind of um 83 quid a month to get by on. There wasn't enough to buy like new boots, and my my boots fell apart and they were like my tools. That's the only thing I needed. Yeah, and these are it's like wheels. I look back at now, like when I finished playing, I had like eight pairs of boots. I had my training boots, soft ground, hard ground, you know, molds. Surprised you didn't have more game boots, and yeah, yeah, I'd I've probably still got boxes of boots in the in the shed now. But at the time, you know, my boots are that fucked. I'd I'd taped them, I'd done everything. Um I'd even gone to Nigel Redmond, who was like this uh he was our academy manager, and he was a British and Irish lion. I said my boots have got any old boots. I knew he had some added, he was size 13. I even tried wearing size 13 boots for two sizes too big for me for a bit. Clown shoes. So I got to the point where I mustered up a few kind of pennies, and I we lived next to kind of like a corner shop and I had a phone box outside. So I went out and I I put the um I don't even know if phone boxes work anymore. I don't think there are phone boxes anymore, mate. I think there's it I'm I'm in this phone box and I've rang mum, dad, and uh kind of one pleased that I'm still alive and thankful for the call, but I've uh I've actually kind of like as a man at the because I thought I was like a grown man, a bit like you, you know, like 18. Yeah, yeah. I had to ask my mum for money. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I I just need like 50 quid mum, which is like $150 at the time, which is fuck if the exchange rate was at now, I would be laughing. But um, to ask my mum for money to get new boots was was a real big ask. And like I said, to to anyone listening, it probably means nothing, but I felt like a failure. I felt like I'd set off on this journey to to be this rugby player or have this opportunity, cap in hand. And then mum and dad got me my flight, and I always said I'd pay that back. Yeah, but then I'd had to go back and and ask for more, and I felt like a little bit, I felt dirty, I felt a little bit embarrassed, I felt I just felt like I'd failed, you know? Yeah, and then this um it probably leads to the the next kind of step in my rugby journey is uh at one of those under 19 camps, you get all the um all the academy managers are like sniffing about, they're all floating about, and and the Worcester players, because we weren't in the premier premiership, so Worcester were producing all these players, but Rich talent pool basically that just it was teeming with talent. Yeah, and uh nice word, nice word. Uh I'd played against um we we played in the same premier kind of A or reserves competition to make up the numbers, and I remember coming to Northampton one night and um we we played here and fuck I looked at the ground and it was like pristine and at the time they had a couple of all blacks there that kind of you know resonated with me. I was like, there's a couple guys I recognise names, I know and uh we played on a Monday night, and uh I went I basically beelined for their coach after the game, I didn't know who he was, and I just said um uh James, you know, uh is there any interest in can I come here? And he was gone, like fuck yeah, well you've just made my job really easy. Yeah, because you can't actually poach players at that age, yeah. But um he just basically said we can we can work something out, and um I kind of made it happen, you know. I I saw something, I wanted it, yeah, and I went for it because the the the environment at Worcester was I was getting filled in every week, we're getting like we didn't even have the training kit.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

What he said, you were getting abused, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

But 100%, yeah, yeah. But it was it was good, yeah. But like you know, as a young player, you just want the kit, you want to be a part of it, you want to you want to feel yeah, like we trained on dog shit 10, like pitch 10, like on the other side of the fucking river in Worcester. It's now a car park. Yeah, we used to train over there, and then when we got summoned, we'd go get filled in by the the the first team, you know. Um, but like the offer, like Northampton go, like, okay, yeah, we we can make something work. So um they actually said, What do you need between now and the end of the season for you to be alright? You know, and I said, Oh, just a bit of a bit of financial support because I'm not getting by. So, like I don't know, a week later or a couple days later, I get this um a check in the mail for 1500 quid. Yeah, and I'd like it's like I won the fucking lottery. Like me, me and two of my my mates went out that night drinking champagne. Spent two grand. But mate, I remember when the i the iPod uh i iPods, yeah, not iPads, iPods first, you know, the ones with the wheels. Yeah, yeah. I went up to I got one of those, got a new phone, like I was I was creaming it. Big time winning, but I was used to living on fucking 20 quid a week. So and then I I get to Northampton, I make that move, and uh I sign for double the money, I get like 8,000 pounds. So and and money's not money's not like a driver of mine, but when you can't eat, I couldn't eat well, I couldn't train well, and I always remember the first team guys that I live with as well, they'd have steak for breakfast, and I was like, fuck, when I I was eating like poached eggs.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

That's the goal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Mate, I was like, when I make it, I'm gonna have steak for breakfast. And um, I come to Northampton and uh they've doubled my salary because do you know what there's probably some sort of um some sort of like players' union rights that players are paid like a minimum at least to be a full-time player, yeah, because what we were paid, you we couldn't live, yeah, yeah, but we managed, you know. It'd be illegal now, yeah. 100%. So I come to Northampton, I double my salary, and guess what? They paid for my rent as well, and I was like, fucking hell.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

Then they said what am I gonna spend all this on?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

No, and then I get two pairs of uh they said you can have two pairs of boots and a pair of trainers at the start of the season, we'll cover those. Um here's your meat pack for the week from the butchers who sponsor the club, and here's your veg box from the grocers that sponsor the club. So I'm like, fuck, like I've got free rent, free food, free shoes, I've got money in the bank. And what it actually freed me up to do was to actually go, I can make a good shot of this now. Um and I like piled into it, and I actually went there, and when they recruited me, they were like, We want you to be um the understudy to Steve Thompson, who's the World Cup winning hooker. And I was like, What? So I'm gonna train with the England players, yeah. And they're like, Yeah, yeah, so Steve is on the lines too at the moment, and um he can't play for the first month when he gets back. So if you go well, you'll be um you'll be playing. And true, you know, I played the first four games of the premiership when I was 19 years old, yeah. And my mates from Worcester texted me, going, Dills, you're you're on TV.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

So I'd gone from dog shit, Tim, to to playing like it's and it's interesting because what what stimulated that was you having a difficult conversation, probably taking yourself out of your comfort zone, going and having the chat to somebody and going, have you got and that opened up this door, didn't it? And and that might not have happened that easily if that would have not if you'd have not done that, Pratt.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Well I think I think just that vulnerability thing. It wasn't it wasn't um I've probably said it wrong here, but it wasn't like can I come here? It was probably like can I please come here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, uh it's probably a bit of um odd of a twist about it.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

This is this is one of the I've had this chat with a number of people, and just and this I think this is one of the key things we'll talk about where it'll connect with other people, it's recognising those opportunities where you could not say anything, you could have just hoped that they've approached you or hoped that you'd received a letter, whatever it was, but you actually went, Do you know what this recognize this is an opportunity for me? This this is a junction. I either do something with that information or I don't and leave it in fate's hands, whoever's hands, and uh, but you didn't, you you you did something about it, and again, you can like you said, you can reflect on what happened if you'd have stayed in Rotarua. You don't know, do you? You only know what you know, and you've learned by taking action each time you've chosen to do something, and it's it's gone alright, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Yeah, I reckon it's um, and even now looking back, and it's almost like a problem or a hurdle or whatever it is, like if it's shared, it's you know, it's halved, you know, yep, and it's not internalized, you're not sitting there thinking about it. So it's it's the same thing from getting off in LA and not knowing where to go, you've got to talk to someone, you'll find a solution. Yep. Um, you know, I needed to change tact and and where I was going with my rugby journey. I was I was struggling, I found a way. I talked to someone, I asked the question, yeah, and it was probably the best question I I ever asked.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

When did you start having steak for breakfast? Have you ever stopped having steak for breakfast?

SPEAKER_01 39:34

I I went through a period of having steak for breakfast, but um, it wasn't yeah, my missus tries to keep me off the steak now. Yeah, yeah. Once a week. You're not you're not vegan, you're not saying you're vegan. Almost. I'm a flexitarian. Yeah, I try I try and limit how much. Um good. I'm a I'm a big man, you know. I need to watch what goes in.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

Feed the machine. You've got to feed the machine too.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

It's not a machine. I don't think it ever was a machine. Um, it was it was it was funny, and it even when I got to Northampton, I still had that sort of um I I compared myself to my academy counterparts. Uh so I signed into the academy, but I was I was playing men's rugby and I was getting like match bonuses, so I was I was creaming it there. But like the guys that were coming into the academy, they were fresh out of school, so they come from that um that babied environment or that that comfy environment where I'd been cutting my teeth for two years fighting with with men in Worcester and and doing the the kind of military-based training and and building my engine and and hustling off the field as well. So I felt like uh I don't want to I felt like a men amongst boys in that and then I sat there and I was like fuck like I'm playing with those guys and I'm sat in this change room which is about this size and here and I kind of aspired to to be there. Yeah, I didn't want to mix, it sounds really bad. And that you just said the word big time, yeah, but um I didn't want to mix with those kids because I was playing with those guys, so what I did is um naturally I I gravitated to some of the the kind of more senior kind of Kiwi guys and guys that I could kind of connect with, and I understood kind of the Kiwi rugby culture, so I kind of just shut up and got my head down and and spoke when spoken to and I kind of got looked after by those boys. Um, you know, kind of got invited to the back of the bus. Again, just sat there head down, got to the services, I'd get the credit card, you know, big Carlos Spencer would be like, Neff, go get the go get the McDonald's, get the bears, sort yourself out something. And then when we got off the bus, when we're all boozed up and go to town, you know, Bruce Rounder would slap like 50 quid in my hand and say have a good night. So I got I got looked after, then off the field. Big Paul Tupie, uh Matt Lord, who I talked about before, um, they lived in the same estate as me. So it was come around for dinner. So I was eating out three, four times a week, and I was sitting around a table with a family with young kids, and all those kids now are like 20, 21. Connor Tupie is now playing professional at Northampton. So when my academy counterparts were going out for the equivalent of a Nando's and George Foreman fucking grilling their steak or chicken breast at home and you know, watching Netflix or whatever it was at the time, I was in a family environment, I was around older people kind of providing that um that that family life. So I don't know, I just had aspirations to distance myself from being a student or an academy rugby player, and I wanted to latch on to guys I kind of aspired to be. Because I was playing with like imagine that, like I'd been in New Zealand at 16 years old. I was watching Carlos Spencer on fucking TV playing, and then at 19 I'm on a preseason tour with them. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

I mean massive opportunity. So there's that there's that saying, I'm trying to think of the exact word, and it's about you, the sum of the five people closest to you. The average of the five people closest to you, and you put yourself again, found yourself, but almost wiggled yourself into this room of where you're choosing to surround yourself with these people that you feel like a stretch above you, you know, and but it's good for you to be there rather than kind of the easy, easier option of surrounding yourself with your peers in the academy and going, let's go to Nando's. Nothing wrong with Nando's, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

No, I I don't even think it was in like now. I look back and I can say it was intentional, but at the time it was things like um I didn't have a car, so like if I drove one of the senior boys on a night out, drove them home, drove the boys around the pubs, took them out, and I stayed sober, I'd drop them home and I'll keep the car for the weekend. Um so it's like there was like incentives like that.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

But um when you say when you say it wasn't conscious, it was probably more unconscious, but to me that says that's thirst. You know, you've got this maybe not clear goal of right, you want to be as good as you can be, but you've got this thirst that well, where is the opportunity? I'll do that, I'll be the I'll be the the good person for these, be the good teammate, you know. And and you know, people might see that in different ways. Well, I'm not being a you know, nowadays there's this ego's away involved, aren't it? But it sounds like the your fundamentals or the egos like right down there. You do the fundamentals right, you're the you're a good teammate, you know, you're disciplined. I just wanted a car.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah. I was getting free food. But again, like just watching and learning, and um, I think that's one of the the the biggest things I learned from a young age is if you just watch and learn, and it's like getting advice, you know. Someone said to me really early, like the good thing with advice is like you can get loads of it, you've just got to filter what's good and what works for you. And it's just like watching people, you know, whenever they speak or how they conduct themselves, you can watch people all day, uh, and especially in a rugby environment, how professional they are, how to let their hair down. You just make your own, you know, what's good for you. And the people that I kind of connected or what I wanted to be like were conveniently good people. Yeah, I just seem to have made good choices. Yep. Um, I made plenty of you know poor shit choices along the way as well.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

Yeah, me too. So we Alex Waller actually said similar, and but it's interesting in the sense that for those that haven't listened to that pod, um he sees it you were that person for him, if that makes sense. And I'm sure you've had this conversation, and that it's it's funny, that's work for you. You must have made yourself available for people like Alex and teammates like Alex to kind of learn from you, if that makes sense, and and the the similar thing. I don't if that's something again that's conscious, or is that something that uh unconscious?

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Yeah, I I think the way that I got looked after, so it goes back to an experience I had at Worcester. Um, because we didn't have the same kit, yeah, I'd walk along the corridors there and a senior player would walk past and they wouldn't say hello to you. Yeah. And I thought, fuck, if I ever make it, if I ever make it, I'll talk to the young fellas. Yeah. So equally, when I go to Northampton and then I get shown some love by the senior players, because I was playing, I was earning my stripes, so I was a teammate. Um I kind of thought I'd always give time if I make it, because at that time I hadn't made it, you know. I I wasn't signed, sealed, delivered 10 years in the game. So when I kind of made it, and especially when I took a captaincy role at quite a young age, I knew how important it was to connect with the younger guys. So I wouldn't give my time or my energy up to just anyone, you know what I mean? I think it's like a mutual thing, it's almost like that mentoring thing. I think you kind of find each other. Yeah, yeah. Um, he kind of I could see he was gravitating this way. Maybe I saw a bit of myself in him. Um, he was obviously good enough to play, so straight away you earn a bit of credibility. Guess what? He's pretty quiet, so he he didn't make enemies straight away, he worked incredibly hard. Um, so I think once you got a young guy coming through, you see a little bit of that, see a bit of yourself in that person, you take a shining. And I know from talking to him and listening to the pod, he wanted to distance himself from those other people. Academists, yeah, one on your butt guess what? The the rest of his group probably fell by the wayside, and he he he kind of progressed.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

I see that as thirst, drive, it's all those things, and that's that's the way, isn't it? Um, no, it's encouraging to hear, and also one of the things I've realized that kind of I've had decent mentors through my careers. I don't know whether I ever recognise them as a mentor or a role model, um, both people I knew and ones that I didn't work with, but when you have got an opportunity to be that as well, it's actually it feels really good for you as well, doesn't it? Right? So again, I'm trying to think of this from the people listening. If there's opportunities where you're in a position, senior management, whatever, and there's people below that have kind of you've got a similarity with or you've got this friendship with, and just helping them is is really encouraging, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:28

It's um do you think it's like a dying, a dying thing, like mentoring?

SPEAKER_03 48:32

Well, I'm trying to I'm trying to do more of it. So um I've not really I I see that there's a massive need for it. So I I again I work with a number of organizations and I and I mentor for a number of different people that can that come to me to be fair at the minute, but I think there's a need for people that because people need accountability and people need um a voice of experience and reason without the ego, um, and you only get that through relationships and trust, right? And so um I think there's more of a need for it. I I think there's a need for it.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

I can't really comment on whether I think it's a dying thing because do you think it's all born out of like um like personal or mutual trust and like a personal thing first? So you can't kind of come in um and say, let me mentor you. It's my job.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

You kind of need to find there's got to be a common ground, um, and but also I think there's uh again, I can only speaking from experience, you know. I think your background, such as yourself, you come with a certain amount of credibility. So you could go and be a mentor for someone in another high-performing environment, they can recognize your credibility, right? So and that's uh I see that people come to me.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

I look in the mirror most days looking for credibility.

SPEAKER_03 49:45

I I don't see it, not seeing any here for me either. But um, no, I people people approach me, and so I've I've had to think about this. I'm like, what do I offer this guy? This might be a high flying lawyer, for example, and it's like, what do I offer that guy? Or a chief exec for a business, and it's like, well, I've not lived his world, but that's not important. Actually, you've lived your experiences that are relatable, and I think that is where so you do need relationships, you do need trust, but trust can come from a credible background as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:13

So um, and I mean you can accept what you're saying is if you get a credible background, you can accelerate that.

SPEAKER_03 50:19

In my opinion, yeah, there's gonna be people that say differently, and and and a lot of organizations have mentorship programs within the organization. What I've learned there is I've got people outside of um or I'm outside of their those organizations. What I see and hear is people don't necessarily want to share their vulnerabilities with people inside their organization, especially if they're higher than them, because they see they feel that that's a bit threatening to their potential promotion prospects, etc. So I I've not got all the answers, but I think there's a there's a need for it, and I think sport, I think um former military people can give a context into business, corporate, other sport. I think sport and military can flip both ways. Sport can offer context into military and vice versa. So I think you can have that shared um learning. That's what it is, it's collaboration and learn, shared learning, isn't it? So um one of the one of the organizations that I've worked with previously is a um he's been on the pod a guy called Professor Preston Klein. He runs the the Mission Critical Team Institute. And ultimately what they do is take groups of people that deal with high threat situations, where that's fire brigade, police, elite military, whatever, NASA, and and share, like get those teams collaborating and learning things together. And elite sport absolutely involve should be involved in that conversation. And all, you know, they've got the they're in America, so they had the Philadelphia um American football team guys over there and and sharing those experiences, high-level coaches, and and there's there's common ground, and the stuff we're talking about today, I find it fascinating because it's it's all the same stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

What does like I I think we we've just been talking about me stealing shit and and food basically?

SPEAKER_03 51:55

Well, I heard discipline, yeah. Uh not not maybe not the not the theft. Um we'll chop that out, but um, but no, so it's well you asked that, so let's let's do that then. What do you think are the qualities that you learned before your kind of very top level kind of um performances in the in the England squad? But what are the key disciplines that you had do you think that you just leaned on every day?

SPEAKER_01 52:17

It it changed. Yep when I was young, it you know, chasing uh a career was exciting, you know, just trying to make it. I was trying to make it continuously trying to make it, and then it got to a point where I'd I'd made it, and uh I even got capped for England at like 21, and it happened quite easy because when you when you're young, it's exciting. Yeah, it just happened. So I think one of the the disciplines that got me there was I don't know what to call it, but the the dream, the chase, yep, that that got me there. That made me play and that made me train and the excitement of the journey.

SPEAKER_03 52:56

And and did was it clear to you that you wanted that England shirt? Is that what you wanted?

SPEAKER_01 53:00

You wanted it became a re like an achievable kind of uh dream or an achievement, it it became doable. Yeah, so I I really went for it.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

You became close enough to go and grab it, so it wasn't something because this is interesting. So when you were in Rotorua, you know, uh playing a career of rugby was probably unachievable, but you saw an opportunity in England where maybe you know Well it kind of just snowballed, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Yeah, yeah. I never actually from day one left thinking it was going to happen, but I came back for that on that one-way ticket, and then it started happening, and then I it started snowballing.

SPEAKER_03 53:38

When you were when you were much younger, did you have a dream of well I'd love to be and it would have been an all-black shirt, I'm sure, I'm sure, but would but there was that like I'd love to be a uh all black captain.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Yeah, not not a captain, but just I think it was like a pipe dream to to be a professional rugby player. It was, but then it got to a point where it was an achievable thing just to be a professional rugby player, you know. My first contract, even though it was fuel expenses at Worcester, yeah, I was professional, I was getting paid, and then Northampton, then I'm I'm I'm with you know, all blacks and and world cup winners, Ben Cohen, Steve, you know, I'm with these guys, so I was a professional, and then all of a sudden it's like, yeah, you could play for England, you know, the England A team are looking at you, and yeah, it just started happening. So it happened real fast though. So within three years of going professional, it happened. I played for England, but then um you asked me about the disciplines, and then for about four or five years, through no sort of or lack of competition, I probably stayed there, yeah. And then I just coasted um consciously, no, yeah. I was young, young, free, and single, having a good time, uh enjoyed the sort of social element of the game.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

You'd met your goal, you were a pro rugby player, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Yeah, yeah. I was was I comfortable? Yeah, I was comfortable, yeah. I was doing it, and because I was young and you're injury free, it just happens, you know. You turn up and you play at the weekend, then you go on the pest, and then you do it, and then even like midweek drinking, we were doing all that, we're having a great time. It was good fun, but um, it got to a point where you know, then challenge started happening. Other guys, my age group were kind of coming through, and I was I'm in a position where you you've got direct competition, only one of you can play. It's not like you play wing or flanker where or lock and you can kind of bounce around. You know, there's only one hooker on a team. So I met a bit of competition there and it kind of brought the best out of me. I always practiced in my spare time on my on my key skills. I always kind of um there's actually some woods up here where I actually, even for a fat lad, I'd go run in the evening, I'd always pick up extra extra fitness, yeah, I'd always work on my skills, I'd always do more. So I was always conscious to to always work. Um and I didn't have a family at the time, so it was easy. You know, you're really selfish as a sportsman, you can do all these things, and then towards the end of my career, um the the fear of not actually achieving anything kind of drove me, and then being handed or thrown a bone by like Eddie Jones saying you can achieve some stuff, you can be a part of something. Um, so you my whole why or the reasoning of of why I wanted to do it changed throughout it. So to start with, it was exciting and I wanted to be a professional and and make it. Yeah, halfway through, it was probably uh natural competition, kind of kept me there, and then towards the end, uh fear of missing out or fear of not achieving anything. Because when I look back at it pre pre-Eddie Jones, pre-2016, I'd played 60, 70 games for England, but like when you look it back at the quality or the what had I actually won or achieved in that shirt, yeah, there wasn't too much. Um a lot of good times. Um, you know, I'm happy I played in like a semi-professional kind of the the amateur professional crossover. I played with some old school guys and we we boozed and we enjoyed the social side of the game, best of both worlds, and we trained and we still played international rugby and we went. Hard play hard. Yeah, yeah, but then towards the end, it was like I didn't touch an ounce and I experienced that kind of high performance um element of of winning effectively.

SPEAKER_03 57:30

Rugby shirts got tight.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

They got tight. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

The amount of times um Nike or Canterbury came in and they're like, right, you know, we're gonna have the club shop fit, but for you guys, we're gonna do like tailored custom shirts, and guess what? The front row, all they wanted was just a loose fitting shirt. Baggy one, yeah, and they always came back fucking snug, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and white is not forgiving. If I played in a black shirt, man, I would have looked like 10 kilo light, I would have looked double-bodied shredded. Yeah, man, I would have been way better. Yeah, but uh, that's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

But you what you I think what you've described in is common for a lot of people in the sense of that big, hairy ass goal that is miles away is just seems so distant to people, and and and it's hard to go, that's what I'm gonna be, and and pin your colours to that mast, you know. Uh, but taking those little steps towards intermittent ones, if if you can break it down, well, yeah, being captain of England is way, way off. But actually, well, let's let's be good in my position in my club. That's the that's be the number one pick. And then it's like, well, actually, maybe I'm looking around the rest of the hookers in the country, and I'm maybe actually maybe I could be the best one of those, and that gets you an England spot, right? And then it's like we're looking around, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

I think that comes through opportunity as well, though. Like I was very lucky um when I played for England, you know, timing was right. Yeah, I was the only well, there was a couple my age coming through, but I was one of the only sort of options, and people were retiring, so I got an opportunity, and I look at um say if you're a young fly half now trying to make the England team like all the best trying to displace like Owen Farrell or George Ford, yeah, opportunity and timing is is is key in a lot of things, you know. So I I got a great opportunity um and I just managed to hang in there, and I reckon that's probably the the proudest thing because everyone says, Oh, what's your proudest moment in your career and that? And I reckon it's just sustaining it. Yeah. Because you you get there, it's easy, but then fuck, it's easy just to fall away.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

This is it's interesting you bring that up. One of the, you know, I'm fascinated by high performance, and but actually more fascinated in the people that have got longevity in that, you know, and the people that have sustained it, like you said, you know, to be and my old organization, we'd get the young guys turning up, you know, then when I say young, they'd be sort of mid mid-20s, maybe. And um, you know, they're strong, they're fat, they're fist, uh strong, they're fast.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

Um they're strong and fat, I I could have come and done what you were doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

But no, they they are strong, they're fast, they're good at what they're doing, they're thirsty, and and it's that's awesome, you know, and they are they are they're machines uh and they are super fit. I've I'm fascinated by the guys that are in their 40s and they're still doing it, if I'm perfectly honest. You know, that's what like well, what what is that secret source, you know, and what are the disciplines that they've got to can to maintain that? Because fear. Well, well, there's a lot that we we talked about. If you stop, what's gonna happen? Don't ever stop. But uh yeah, so it's it's it's fascinating to me that that sustainability is important, and and that comes from having like you you quite humbly say, Well, I was lucky of of an opportunity, and you know, you can lean into that and focus on that, but but equally, you there was lots of things you did to make sure you were the person getting picked, I'm sure. Can you talk about sort of Eddie?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

What are you uh what are you suggesting I was doing to get picked?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

I think I am not suggesting anything. I think you are reading too much into that, sir.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

I've been through three England coaches. Yeah, that sounds wrong. Martin Johnson was the biggest, yeah, Eddie Jones was the smallest.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

He was the longest in the shower, really. But um, so on Eddie Jones, um, you know, because obviously your career is it fair to say, skyrocketed with Eddie? Would you look at it like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Or do you know what it gave me uh life after rugby? It gave me something to to look back on and and celebrate.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

That legacy.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

Uh just for myself, yeah. Yep. A little bit of closure because um I missed out on two World Cups through disciplinaries, one through in uh through injury. Um did I say two disciplinary, one injury, and then I partis I was I was in a World Cup, but we were on a jolly. We we also trained and played art. So so Eddie actually gave me something to to look back on with fond memories, and when I talked about um my disciplines or why throughout my career towards the end was fear of of not achieving anything, yeah, and he basically made it very clear to me, I will let you be a part of this and we will achieve something, but you're gonna have to do this, this, and this. So I saw an opportunity, I was given one, um, I was given an ultimatum basically.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

It's a difficult question, this, but um, I'm gonna ask it nonetheless. What do you think? Putting ego to one side, what do you think the the qualities that Eddie saw in you that that made him put you as captain?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

Um one, this is this is why why sliding doors are good. I was I was banned for the 2015 shambles of a World Cup because they got knocked out in the pool stages on a home home World Cup and they were supposed to win the thing. Yep. How's that for pressure? Yep. Just because it's in England, you've got to win it. Yeah, um, but I think I was I wasn't associated with that, so I didn't have my fingerprints on that, and he needed someone new. I'd been around the group for a long time. Um, I was an experienced player, I'd captained my club for eight years or something like that. So I I knew how to captain a team, and just knowing him, and he's told me since he wanted a hard edge, and I'm not implying I'm hard, but I played with an edge uh and he wanted English rugby to return to being English rugby, he wanted to be built on a solid set piece foundation, and he wanted it to have the best defence in the world. Um so I think when he wanted a hard edge and defence, um you know I wasn't the one that was going to deliver the Courtney Laws tackles, but just as a as a mindset, I think there's a couple of things that pointed towards me, and it was never a long-term appointment, it was it was for that one tournament.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:55

Did he communicate it well to you? Did he ever get you in and have a good chat with you and explain no?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

Yeah, he said, Look, you it's quite funny. He goes, You're not a very good player. Thank you very much, Eddie. Yeah, but you got a good attitude and a good mindset. Yeah. He said, I want that to come through in the team. And he said, You're one of the oldest players here. And he said, We're gonna have to work a lot harder as a group. And he said, Um, if you want to be a part of it, you're gonna have to work the hardest. So what I became was the example of work rate or um yeah, work ethic, not work rate, work rate I'd associate with on field, but work ethic pulling it all together, you know, walking around with a notebook, role model behavior, yeah. So, you know, I I'd vision he'd make me work, you know, extra extra fitness when the guys were doing on a down day or rest day, it'd be like I'd come in sweating or in the stretching room, I'd be doing like one-on-one wrestling conditioning with um you know, fitness guys and stuff like that. So in the nature of the um the admin side of the job as well, straight off the training field into um you know media, straight into meetings, and then I'm in the dining hall by myself eating my food two hours after the players have, and it's like, where have you been? And like the players know exactly where I've been. Yeah, so I think just being the visual um epitome of of work ethic, um potentially purchased credit with my teammates. It's like shit, Dylan's old, he's not overly athletic and not overly good at rugby, but he works incredibly hard. I'd like to think that's what they saw anyway, because I know that's what I was made to do. Um, and by doing so, it was fucking hard and miserable and pretty lonely.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

I was about to ask, did you find it burdensome? You know, because we spoke before we we came in and were chatting in your kitchen, and you mentioned about Eddie and that pressure of being the captain. It wasn't something that came easy because net pressure never does right, but was it burdensome to kind of made you do the right things, but it pushed you in the right way?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it basically made me, you know, from the physical side of it, it made me fitter, made me more flexible, more mobile, which meant I had more involvements in the game. The involvements, not the eye-catching ones, yeah, because we talked about this. There's no YouTube uh reels of doing the basics really well. But um, I knew Eddie was happy with my numbers, and then equally from a personal point of view, um pushing me, kind of mentoring me, firing information my way, understanding the Game a whole lot better, um, being able to stand up in front of a room and communicate a whole lot better. You know, there was times where we'd have a meeting and he just wouldn't turn up, and I actually got used to that, so I have to stand up for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:44

Actually, I love that. So he's put you he'd done it purposefully, obviously. He's not even he'd not just got bad discipline himself.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

No, he'd even tell me when things were going to happen. And I think I had his trust at his counsel because I wouldn't communicate with my teammates, I wouldn't gossip, and you know, I just kept things close to my chest. And uh if anything, you know, it's so funny to focus on all the negative connotations or the juicy things about how shit it was and how hard it was. But ultimately, we won 18 games in a row, which is a world record equaling run. Yeah, we we grand slammed, we went to Australia, we we smashed them in their own backyard, number one in the world, like hands down, number one team in the world. We were number two in my tenure, actually. But we were contenders, we didn't actually get an opportunity to to play them. Um there was a couple years there where we're crying out for that game, um, but it didn't happen. But it showed me high performance, and I'm so happy I got to to to experience it, to live it. Um, and it just you know it's like the the mountain climbing analogy that you know if it was easy, everyone would do it, everyone would go win all those games, everyone would grand slam it, but it showed me it takes incredible kind of application, work ethic, and it's it's not an enjoyable experience, and everyone sees the trophy lift, yeah. And everyone goes, Fah, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah. It's like for a split second it is, but it's basically you know, months, weeks of behind closed doors, what goes on, you know, pain, sweat, tears.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:17

Two things, two things jumped into my mind as you were talking about that. So, one I'll get first things that you know, I I walk round um and you show me around your house, beautiful. And there's no rugby pictures, there's no, there's no I don't know. I mean, I'm I'm the same with my old career. There's no I've not got any of that stuff. There's it's it's not I'm I'm looking forward. Is that something you consciously because you said about the trophy lift, everyone remembers the trophy lift, and yeah, there's no there's no pictures of that that I've seen anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

Uh it's funny because um, yeah, like like you, I I listen to a lot of things, read a lot of things, and massive forward thinking. Yeah, um, so it's like what am I gonna do next? Yeah, and I've got so many ideas and things I want to achieve. Yeah, and I think being surrounded by those things um always casts back, and I'm guilty of this, and I I fight it of saying I'd still like to be playing, or you know, like who's this young punk, or like, and I consciously got to say, like, no, just move on, like I'm I'm so passionate about Northampton as you know I played there for so long and massive role in my life, and you know, I see social media things like that kind of creep into my head and it drags me down. I'm like, stop being a dick. Yeah, yeah. So I feel like if I distance myself from that and just keep looking forward, uh, I'm a better, better person. I mean, in that room there, I've actually got a couple little things, but they're actually nice things, and it's pointless having um I don't know, is it like I played 50 games for England, I've got like a little silver cap, yeah, and it's on like a mantelpiece thing, and I've got um my Northampton cap for 200 games, and I've got things like that. I try not to uh surround myself with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:57

Yeah, no, fair play. And just with uh the other one was around Eddie. I I was lucky enough some years ago to um he came and spoke to us actually, um former organization, and he um first things he said when he stood up in front of us because I don't know what I'm here talking about leadership to you guys about, and um, which I thought was really humbling, um, because he he does know a lot about good leadership, you know, he's a world-class leader. Um, but and he spoke about keeping the guys on their toes and throwing swerve balls in there, so he would purposefully sometimes arrive late with a coach so that you were rushed. He'd do this in the the less important games, still important games, maybe versus I don't know, the Argentina or whoever, and then it's less important versus you know the game that's coming around the corner where if there was something happened, there is if there is something you're prepared for it. So he's throwing in that bit of chaos. I I genuinely heard that. And him saying about you saying that he he set you up by not turning up and letting you do the press conference, letting you do the team um talk or whatever. That's I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

There's examples like so so a rugby week works towards the game, right? Yep, and every Friday you have what they call the captain's run where you just go through some, you know, it's it's an excuse to get on the field, yep, to train, to get boys out of bed, to kind of tune the minds into what's coming tomorrow. You run a couple of moves, a couple of line outs, it's about half an hour from warm-up to finish, you know. Then he he he basically said, like, why do we do it? Traditionally, it's like, yeah, but it's shit tradition. Like, do we need to do it? Would you rather have a day off? So we actually got to a point where it was, you know, Thursday or Wednesday, Thursday training wasn't ideal, so Friday would use it as a tool. But if Thursday was good, we'd take the confidence and you know, say, nah nah, we're good today, mate, or we're not even gonna get changed today, we're just gonna walk through something, or let's actually just meet down at the the the park, coffees, and we'll play cricket or get um tennis racket and ball going through the hands just to get boys out of bed, yeah, just so we all connect, you know, day before the game. So it actually he got to a point where even hotels, so we'd always do captain's run, you know, stay at the same hotel and would leave at this time, became really comfortable, and it was almost like you're an autopilot, which I think's good, but when you're comfortable, it can you know, complacency can also sit in. So he started doing things like um we're gonna fly the day of the game or we're gonna travel from here or we're gonna move to this hotel. We're just gonna mix it up a bit because the World Cup, guess what? We ain't gonna be in our comfy hotel here, we're gonna be, you know, we're all on the move. And he said, Again, like a rugby field's a rugby field, it's it's a hundred metres by sixty or whatever it is. Like, we don't need to go to fucking Twickenham to do a captain's run. You all know what the stadium looks like. We can just train here on this field, so it was just changing the mindset of it, doesn't matter where we are, what we're doing. Yeah, if we've got a uh a patch of grass we can train, you know, we don't need ex uh external surroundings to make us perform. It's um yeah, I love that. It's quite a cool uh I actually enjoyed it. It freshened it up completely.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:08

Would would again you're probably biased, would you say he's your your favorite manager, coach, head coach, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:17

Is he you know, yeah, what's it what's that thing where you fall in love with your captor?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:21

Um yeah, Stockholm Syndrome. Is that it? Stockholm Syndrome, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:25

Yeah, I mean, do you do you know what? He he actually came here the other day. Yeah, um, he's kind of like a an old mob boss, you know, he shuffles around a little old fella, and um he he ha has that kind of air of respect about him. Yeah, um and we sit there and we shoot the shit and he fires a couple of rugby things and he's then talking about family and kids, and you gotta remember, like he's actually your father himself, yeah. He's just a super intense like rugby guy. And for three years of my life, he was that to me. Where I had snippets of when we traveled together for kind of presses and and launches and things like that, and and corporate stuff, I saw snippets of how's the missus, mate, how's the kids, you know, everything good, mate? Yeah, you seen this, mate?

unknown 1:14:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:15

So we we had those kind of personal kind of conversations, but the bulk of it, and again, the things we remember are the negative, juicy things, you know, the the dressing downs, the the abuse, the the pressure he kind of put on me to mate training was shit yesterday, mate. It better be fucking good today, mate. Otherwise you you're fucking gone, mate. He's not even joking. It's that sort of pressure to to perform and make sure the team and people around me were doing their jobs, so it'd make me go away and be like, fuck, I need this, yeah. So when I look back at it, yeah, good guy, good, but just super intense. Like, and and when you want a a guy that's gonna win, win, win. I want a super intense coach, especially at that, you know, at national level. Yeah, you want someone as driven as him.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:02

I I was impressed with even he was only speaking to me for an hour. Uh I was really impressed with you know, there was a bank of people, similar kind of vein. Uh and you stood out for me, both humble but also stacks of knowledge, experience, and and like you say, a certain air about him of I think confidence out of um out of those experiences, you know, confident in his own skin, isn't he? He's there to do a job and understood where he's sat.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

Well, I think like the the best thing, like if I compared Martin Johnson, Stuart Lancaster, yeah. I worked a bit with Brian Ashton, um Rob Andrew as well. The the one thing for him is he's old, he he's mature, he's got experience, and um the one thing I I really take from him is he's always learning, yeah, he's always pushing forward, even at like 60 years old or whatever he is, he's still pushing, like he's still looking for more information, he's still trying to grow as a group of growth mindset, a growth mindset in principle, yeah. And I think when when you've got that um at that age, you know, he he's done things that have not been so good. Like he he lost the World Cup final to England in 03, he's lost super titles, he's won a World Cup with South Africa, then he he's with Japan, who beat South. He's won and lost on you know in most major tournaments around the world. So he's got experience. So even when we're bouncing ideas, he'd be like, nah, mate, that's shit. Why? And he'd be like, I did that with this team, and yeah, and then when he actually articulates why it's shit, you're like, Oh, it's a good point. So he shoots you down, but then backs it up. And equally when delivering information to him, you just can't go in and go, let's try this, Eddie. He'll say, Why? And you need to be able to back it up with information, with stats or or details.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:45

Does does he inspire you at all to maybe walk that path maybe at some point?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:52

Uh so the the mentoring side of it, the way that he fired this stuff that people wouldn't have seen, you know, publicly very supportive, behind closed doors, uh uh supportive in his own way, kind of tough love. Yeah, more stick than carrot. Yeah, um but then his kind of his nature to you know what would happen when you're with England, you'd be with him for like a month or two months for six nations, three months maybe, you'd be there. But then when you come home to club, you know, previously all England coaches would bagger off on holiday, leave you alone, he'd just keep coming. Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. Text message information, you know, emails, boom, read this, what do you think? That here's a book, send me a book in the post, and he's constantly sending me stuff. So I I think just the way he kind of mentored me, I again appreciated.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:44

He kind of force fed me information, which made me a better do you do you know you do know you if as the captain he had that special relationship with you, or was he grooming's probably the wrong word, but was he grooming maybe five or six people similar ways, do you think? Or what's your gut feeling?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:01

So I always room with Owen Farrell as well. Yeah. Um and whether he had an armband or not, he's always been a captain. Yeah, he's a real vocal guy. He it it it's kind of it's almost um is it the perfect storm? But he's like your best player, what one of your best players in the field. When one of your best players, most talented, is the hardest working. He he's incredible. Mr. Rugby, isn't he? Mr. Rugby. He just bangs on the face of rugby as well, isn't he? He's he's unbelievable. So I think that was always gonna happen. And if you were going to challenge someone that was going to take it, it would have to be someone pretty remarkable. I was just lucky that there's no one else around at the time, and Owen probably no, but again, like you don't want to chuck that straight onto your goal kicker um onto his shoulder straight away. So I think it was probably always gonna happen, and it's it's definitely the right guy. Um, but there's just so much to captaincy, you know, like people see it as like a the spectacle on a Saturday, like the glossy thing, lead the team out, lift the trophy, you know, talk to the referee, all that sort of shit. But for me, it was like Sunday to Friday. Yeah, it was the management, it was the preparation because performance, what I learned was habitual. You couldn't just rock up on Saturday, you might win every now and then, you might lose, but to be consistent, it's habitual. So Mondays, fucking the standards, even in the walkthrough, have to be bang on. The recovery standards have to be bang on. It's an attitude, it's a mindset from Sunday to Friday, and that's for me what a captain does. Yep. Um, and yeah, I don't think people see that, and uh, everyone just wants their favourite player.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:39

Um, analogy of you know, match days 80 minutes, um you know, 24 hours in a day. You sleep and let's say you should be getting eight hours, you know, what you do in the other 14 hours after you've played a game plus the debrief, etc. Do you know what I mean? What is those four that they're the that's where the the top players are winning, isn't it? It's that that rest of the day that you're uh you're spending. It's and that's discipline, that's the stuff that people don't see. And I I wanted to just quickly nudge into this, Iraq, because you mentioned you mentioned leadership earlier um off camera, and just that role model example that you um lived, is that is that something you've seen yourself from other people or is that something that you just felt in your gut was the right thing to be?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:26

Um I think it's kind of leadership by doing and and and you know walk the walk. This is where I I struggle, like um I know some kind of guys in in your circle where it's like you know, just walk there's loads of people that talk the talk, and but but in rugby, especially in a cabinet sea role, you need to be vocal. Yeah, you can't just be the best player in the pitch and inspire people through actions because I couldn't do that. You need to be vocal, like you need to have managerial skills, you need to be able to communicate from Sunday to Friday. And I've played with guys with people like rolling their eyes because this guy just talks all week and he doesn't fucking turn up Saturday, and I think or I hope anyway, I I struck a balance of having that credibility of performing Saturday, not inspiring through actions, but just doing my job really well, yeah, but also being able to communicate during the week. And I think um there's too many people that probably sit back and just go, I'm just gonna focus on me and play really well. That's good leadership, but but in a sporting environment, you need to be able to communicate as well. Um, and I see that a a lot in in rugby.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:41

So one of the easiest things to do is to communicate, is to talk, is to it's funny, it's again my experiences, whilst different or similar, um I always preferred to be the glue, the kind of and it wasn't I was never people use Churchill as the example, don't they? That Churchillian speaker, that was never me. Um I used to stand in front of a room of people in various jobs and have to do that, but it wasn't something that I enjoyed doing necessarily. But I I I love to be in people's ear, off you know, out of earshot of everybody else. Do you know what I mean? And it's like having those chat and connecting it with them as you know them because of that relationship you've got with them, you know the things that they would they need to hear in that and it's not in front of everyone, you know, never wanted to embarrass people or never wanted to single people out, you know, because I would have hated that equally. So again, you find your way, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:27

Do you do you think that's through um I I completely agree, but like buying credit with people? So um just like having like a little bit of credit or a personal touch with everyone in the group, you know, you don't need to be best friends and and and get along, but yeah, as long as at some point throughout your career or that person's career, you've connected over something, or you give them time of day. So when you do pull people up or ask something of them, you get a response.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:58

For me, it was always about just being authentic. So, like I said, I wasn't that Churchillian speaker. So when I was in a position of command, I didn't want to be the Churchillian speaker because that's not how I work best. So authentic me is having those personal relationships and chats with people, sort of not in front of everybody else necessarily. So, and again, I think what what with authenticity you get is people then can't see through it. You know, if someone's like trying to you get into you see all the time in corporate where people are the best salesman in their division, then they all of a charge and all of a sudden they're in charge of a sales team, and then they've got a change to be something they think well, well, actually, you people see straight through it, they're like, Well, that's not you. And I I would never want it to be that. I'm not gonna say I always got that right. There's bound to be some people out there going, well, guys, what about this? What about that? And that's fine, you know. We all learn by our mistakes, and I've certainly given one or two people a bit of a hairdryer treatment. Again, that isn't me. Do you know what I mean? But um, I think authenticity is is the best way to be a leader and just to say, Well, you can lean on your experiences, and this is my experience, and I'm sharing it with you. You need to hear this. You don't want to hear it, you need to hear it because you've got some learning to do, and I'm telling you because I care and I want us to do better. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:15

The best example of that in a rugby thing is it when everyone always huddles, and you've usually got your key individuals or your key kind of leaders that would speak, yep, and everyone kind of turns to those guys, then you get the dude or the the guy that pipes up when the when the coach is kind of like circling like a great white, and he'll see the coach or he's clocked them and then he'll throw in like his two, and you see all the eyes, the all the eyes kind of like you clock eyes of your friends around the circle. It's like what the fuck's this guy talking about?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:44

That's that's funny. So on on selection, uh SF selection, that's that is nailed on what we call a DS watcher, so directing staff watcher. You're waiting for the DS to come, then you're voicing everyone's like, Who's this guy? But we've this the selection process has got uh um it's got built in where you can what they call Slater mate. So you can there's these opportunities where like who's being false? Who's being false in front of and there'll be these one-to-one interviews and you get an opportunity to say, look, so and so in my team is not a team player, he's only vocal when when you guys are showing the face, and they won't they won't go off one person's view, but if they're hearing this as a common thing, and it's a balance to be had because you don't want to be put throwing people under a bus.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:25

Yeah, I was gonna say, do you have to slate? No, no, no, no, not at all, not at all. But if you're not slating anyone and you book like you're not but and there's a common theme, if you're not seeing, if you're not slating who everyone else is slating, are they gonna My experiences of it is is if you were being asked, then it was being a bit of it was you were being guided.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:43

There was almost like there was you knew there was someone they were after anyway. Do you know what I mean? And it was obvious to you, and it it you know it's it's a it's a funny old thing, and I think auth authenticity ultimately is the is the is the best thing to be. Be authentic, you know, um because people can see through BS, they can see through BS, can't they?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:59

This is completely unrelated, but we did this uh this thing at Hereford, uh not at Hereford, but down near Hereford, yeah. Went to this uh pre-season camp, and um we all set down, we got split into groups of three one of the bunkers, no nah. It was we were in like some campsite somewhere, right? Okay, um, that paintballing campsite, yeah. Okay, and it was just funny um how like the pressures of like what you're saying, like Slater Mate. Yeah, we we got put in a similar one. The the guy, the the military guy stood the front, was like, all right, stand up if you're an alpha male.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:35

It's not the weirdest question I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:37

Yeah, it fucking was, but like the social pressures of it, yeah, yeah. I thought, you know what, I fucking am. So I just stood up, yeah, no one else. I was like water, I was like watered, and then it actually it actually worked for me. He he looked at her and goes, Aren't all of you you've all got to be to do what you do, you need to, you know. It was just so fucking funny though. Like, uh, I felt like a complete outsider.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:03

No, no, no, it is funny, but but I was like, if if I was on like a selection, have I just been like fucking and again, question for you then, Dylan, just quickly, do you think that is because we talk about facades and we talk about putting a face on, a mask on for a certain role? Um, that when you were put in that position, do you think that was like you felt like you had to stand up, or would you say, no, out of a group of people, I'm I I try and be the alpha. I generally find myself being the alpha.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:29

I I don't try, certainly don't try. I just think naturally there's a there's a few kind of um I've got a couple of values which would suggest that I am, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not probably not front and centre, but yeah, um I I kind of think and I I only speak from experience. Yeah, especially being a forward in rugby, yeah. You need to be dominant, you need to be assertive, you need to that's what you've been taught. I don't I don't even care off the field you because I know plenty of guys that that play up here, then off the field they're just so mellow and and they're not like that. But I think when you go to to work, I would demand that I need a team of of assertive, dominant individuals to be successful because the game's built on physicality.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:15

You want people that are going to run towards the firefight, not run away from the firefight. That's what you're looking for, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:20

100%. Yeah. So it did concern me when the rest of the team fucking stayed on the floor.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:24

Have I been stitched up? Yeah, yeah. It felt a bit like that. I've got a few questions. I was filling with my phone then, just so you know, I'm not being ignorant. I've got a few questions from people.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:32

There's probably from people we know as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:33

All right, well, maybe one or two. But I just uh I just want to I reached out, didn't say who, but people have sent in a few questions. So uh I'll just hand pick a few here. So I like this one. Um so what habit intentionally created was the most responsible for your sustained success? What would you say about that? So what do you think was the the habit that you chose to or worked hard on being and doing to give you the success that you had?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:00

It's like chicken and egg, I think. So I got in trouble a lot. Yeah, and every time I got YouTube shows that. Yeah, that's probably all it shows. So I got in trouble a lot, which made me enjoy the resilience kind of story. You never I I was never good enough. Uh should never play for England again. This guy's better. I always enjoyed that narrative. Yeah. Um and because I had like a quite a good work ethic of working away from you know, I I'd go home from training and I would do extras. So I always had a really good work ethic coupled with resilience and enjoying the challenge of proving the narrative wrong. It's not people, just the narrative, because the narrative included media or you know, selectors, fans, or whoever. I just enjoyed it and it was like got to a point where um I kind of thrived in it. You prove them wrong. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:58

That that chat that's challenge mindset rather than a threat. This is a challenge. You could people are saying things about you, and I don't want to that's awkward, but no, I'll prove you wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:06

But but but equally, like I I sit on the fence with it, it's like why are you listening to those people? But uh unfortunately, with the nature of the job, yeah, it's like I had to hear that, it came kind of part and parcel with it. Yeah, yeah. Um, so you it doesn't is it a good habit? Yeah, I got in trouble a lot as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:22

You learn from you made mistakes and you learn from them, hopefully. Um so someone's asked about toxic team environments. Did you did you work in any? And if you did, how did you turn that around? Did you work in any that you can remember?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:36

Yeah, I mean, it happens everywhere. I don't know about toxic, I was never involved with toxic. I was involved with um kind of lifeless teams. So, you know, under Stuart Lancaster, um he inherited an England team where he had to make culls because off the back of 2011, uh what was dubbed the kind of Stagdo, Tyndall Stagdo in Queenstown, where it was a rugby world cup, he had a cleanup job, so he had like a brand, an image job. So he inherited this team, culled all the old boys, took on all the young boys, and by taking on the young boys, he said, if you want to play for England, there's no booze culture. And I was he was on the fence about me, not sure about you, Dylan. I'll give you a chance. So I had to basically button up characters in the game, Chris Ashton, James Haskell, kind of were told to stand up straight and keep your mouth shut. And I think when you've got um a colourless uh team, you don't have a fun team, and you need people to to enjoy being somewhere to thrive to get the best. And we we did um kind of presses or or media sessions where we got sheets given to us uh with bullet points on what to talk about. Yeah, number one, talk about how good the culture is, talk about how good it is playing for England. It's almost like we lost identity by pandering to the media and Joe published too prescriptive, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then um I was like, I I've experienced good culture at Northampton and it was built out of personal relationships, yeah. A lot of time drinking, probably, a lot of time winning together, losing together, but spending time together, and like we had a good culture, and I I I even when you feel a good culture, yeah, we were there being told to talk about how good the culture was, and I it didn't so even when you're talking about these things and you don't believe it, yeah, it doesn't come across. No, it's lack of authenticity, and then um Eddie Jones come in and just goes, Fuck, I don't give a fuck where you're from, as long as you want to win, that's the main and then like the players hear that and they're like me being a Kiwi-born guy with proud English heritage, I tiptoed around like, would I rather be an all-black or do you even want to play for England? I was like, Yeah, I fell English in my early years, you know. I'm I'm but I just said, like, look, I can't control where I was born. I'm here now, I want to win. That's the main thing. And and Eddie kind of made everyone just say, you know, fuck talking about culture and stuff in the team, talking about winning. Yeah, yeah. You know, no one in international sport other than American sports really does it. Everyone's really respectful, and oh yeah, we we hope we go well this weekend and we want to try and win. Whereas we got to a point, I was like, Yeah, we're we're gonna win, we've trained to win this week, we're going out there to win. This is international rugby. I remember doing interviews over and over like this. Yeah, we're we're preparing to win, it's all we want to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:28

But before we would have tiptoed around the three-letter word that is win, because you don't want to be seen as arrogant, and and then and then you've got that on tape that some days later you haven't won, and then you've like you've you know you had some risk there, but that is that that's not the concern, is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:43

Eddie gave us that kind of confidence, confidence. And the question was about toxic environments. Toxic comes in in different forms, I think. Uh I've never really been involved with riffs or anything like that. We've always had pretty good teams like that. But in terms of colourless teams, I'll I've been involved with and and losing, losing's fucking hard. Like losing one game is hard enough because you get next week to put it right. Yeah, but when you lose like 12 on the bounce, yeah, and you're in a captaincy role and you're feeling yourself getting dragged down, like the hardest thing to do is to keep fronting up Monday with that kind of positive, like I said, shoulders back, head up, still being a vocal presence, but it's like, am I being too vocal? But someone's gonna fucking do the talking. Yeah, then everyone's rolling their eyes, going, Well, you missed three tackles at the weekend, dickhead, and you're up there chirpsing about defence. Yeah, but like if I don't speak, yeah, we have a silent meeting. So that's when I I find it hard where people say just lead by example. You you've got to lead with actions and also the vocal side of it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:46

There's gotta be honesty as well, though, hasn't it? There's gotta be honesty. There's that you know, you've got no trust in a team if people can't be honest, you know, and create that environment where people can be honest with each other. Um, if you're losing, again, not a necessarily a relatable thing for me, but there's things we planned and didn't go well regularly, and you need to talk about that, you need to learn about it. You've got to you've got to you can't then just think all right, next one win. And you know it's it's BS, isn't it, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:11

So yeah, so a lot of it's emotional. Yeah, it's like let's go fucking train harder, let's smash each other. You know, forwards coach, like a fight happened on on Tuesday, it's like oh we'll win at the weekend. That's put to bed. But then like Eddie, for example, would be like he'd come in really measured cutum and be like, why did we lose? He'd be like, These three key points why we lost. It's like, right, well, this training week, we're gonna put 15 minutes extra on all these three things, and we'll never lose that again.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:39

That's honesty, that's honesty in a nutshell, isn't it? It's it's good analysis and honesty. Yeah, I love that. Um, mate, how many pints can Jason Leonard drink on a day session?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:48

No idea. My first cap, right? Uh, you had to have a drink with every basically every England player that brought you a drink, he'd bring one for him and one for you, and you just have to nick it. He brought me a pint of white wine and one for himself. Yeah, it didn't end up very well.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:04

I I'd call that a death wet for those in the in the his nickname's the fun bus.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:10

Yeah. I think he can put a few away.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:13

I've I've I've looked, I've been lucky, I've played a round of golf with uh Jason, and um he uh he called me Gal. And we had this uh all day. I told him it's gaz. It's gal. I think it's a thing it's a sudden thing. Everyone's gaz is gal or dazz and dal. Anyway, we went for this round and we played on this round, and there's one of this one hole, it was uh it was the longest drive, and whoever got the longest drive uh won a case of uh case of wine, box of wine, and uh he was like, Gal, check this out. He sort of he leveled up and he kind of took this swing with this uh full ball with the biggest driver that he's got, and the ball just disappeared, and we're like, where on earth has that gone? And it literally dropped right at his feet, and we were just crying. He was like, he was gutted. That man's got some stories though. He he was he told me a few stories again. Uh uh certain one on Sean Connery off camera, I'll tell you later as well. But uh um, yeah, brilliant. Um, top, top, top bloke.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:05

Mate, um I I feel um so whenever I get on doing like a bit of speaking and that I don't feel I've got the stories that those old boys have got because they all you know with the booze and the touring back in the day just seemed like a different gravy. We we were lucky to do a night out, you know, at the end of a series or something like that. And by the end of it, you know, even drinking alcohol was a bit of a bore because of you know soft tissue injuries, all that sort of shit. Yeah, but so whenever I go speak, it's all around like leadership, high performance, and then I got big Jace there, like he's got the room and stitches of his stories, he's he's class.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:37

Yeah, no, he is he is a funny, funny bloke. Uh, I did enjoy that. Um, final one then. So well, two questions really. Did you did you suffer pre-game nerves um for the big games, shall we say? And and and the real question is how did you deal with it? And it's because maybe if you didn't, there was a process that you had that dealt with it. What how did you deal with that pressure?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:59

Genuinely, yeah, and I'd like to get your spin on it, but the more I did it, the easier it became. Oh, yeah. It became work. So when I was 19, like I went from prop to hooker professionally, like it's a big move. I couldn't throw, I had a natural kind of feel, but I'm there playing at Welford Road, which is up in Leicester, like in the local derby, my first ever game, and I'm like, fuck, are we kicking off? Okay, we're kicking off, which means Andy Good's gonna get the ball and kick it out, you know. Just if we're that's typically what happens. So I'm gonna get the first line out of the game, about 40 metres out, it's gonna be so I'm thinking I can't throw. I'm like, please don't kick the ball out.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:43

So when I was young, so you were worrying about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:45

Yeah, when I was young, I prayed the ball didn't get kicked off the field. I love that. There's like 13 line outs a game, you know, there's 10 to 20 line outs a game. So I'm like, I'm gonna have to get fucking good. So then that kind of fear drove the work ethic of the throwing. Yeah, so I I I kind of took a ball home, I drew my hands and permanent marker on the ball, I'd sit on the couch holding the ball so my technique was the same, and then I'd practice just about every day. Yeah, and then this is what this is the stuff people don't see, yeah. But then towards the end, like the the young hookers at the club, I'm like, when I was your age, I was fucking throwing every day. Yeah, yeah. Every day, and they probably saw me 2930, 3932. Um, let's drop this in there. I was uh the best stats in the world with for throwing for the last four years of my career. So they saw that fair credit to you, sir. So they saw that you know, the end of the 10,000 hours, I'd done my time basically, and they probably saw me as a role model going Dylan only does it once a week as a dedicated session because you know, in team team runs I'd be throwing, and then my one dedicated session, Steve Borthwick would come throw with me, that'd be me done. So I'd be like, Dylan only throws once a week, so we only need to do it once a week. But like when I was young, I was throwing I I went down the local park, basketball hoop, uh, went to indoor leisure centres, all the shit that people, even my teammates didn't see, but I was so shit scared of letting or I even got nervous about training missing line outs because you fuck up training. Yeah, if you can't launch um off a line out and training, the coach, I've seen coaches like lose their shit. Like, you know, academy players, you know, send them around the post and then sub another player in. So I never wanted to be that example. Um so I completely forgot that. No, no, it wasn't. So the more I do it, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then the other thing is like doing it on the big stage, you've got to fuck up to learn. Couldn't agree more. So, like five metres out from your line, Millennium Stadium against Wales, you know, the ball goes back and it's five metres out from your line. You'd like, you know, if you overthrow this or if you underthrow it, you give the team the ball five minutes from your line, or they're gonna score if you throw it over the back. It's like so one, the fitness element of it is fucking get there first, get the ball, make sure it's dry. Yep. So I'd have to be fitter to get there sooner, so I'd always make sure I got there quicker, and then two, just you know, I've underthrown a few, overthrown, none of them resulted in tries, but they're enough to make you think shit, like I need to be good at that.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:22

That's better, and that's driving you forward. So, again, so many comparable experiences, and you spoke about honesty. You know, first time I went to uh one operate, like first time I went to a certain theatre, I'd not been there, I'd just heard horror stories about the from the people there, and I knew friends that had been injured. A good friend of mine just before I got there had been uh shot and killed, and so I had this fear narrative in my mind about this place, and we we went out there and I'd practiced hundreds and hundreds of times running off the back of the helicopter and doing this certain drills and and dealing with threats in a certain way. Yeah, that's what I was gonna do. The reality of that helicopter flight, that first time I was scared, and I was it was the the the anxiety about what might be, and things had happened, and so you focus on those negatives, don't you, right? And so um, and the first time I I ran out, performed badly, in my opinion. Um, nothing bad happened, if I'm honest, but it was that inner kind of feeling. And a few good friends of mine that critiqued me, it's a polite way of saying it, slag me off in front of people, saying, mate, you were you were crap, you did this, you should have done that. And I knew it inside. You know, being a professional is like you say, you go, I don't want that to happen again. I want to be the people that they look up to, and I want to be the people they they they um respect. And so I worked on it. What can I change? What can I do about that? If I did it again, what would I do? And I practiced, and this is this is the point of failing forward. This is when there's we were talking earlier about off-camera about the daily stoic and the kind of messages you on Instagram that you see. This is a philosophy that you need to practice, not to read about and to to kind of to fail forward means well, you you've got to fail, and when you fail, well you can choose to just bury that problem, or you can go, right? That's what I need to work on, and I'm just gonna work, work, work until I get better at it, till I'm comfortable. And as you get on, you know, towards the end of my career, like you say, written off the back, it was nothing to me. And in the the Was it work?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:16

Was it just business? As in could you could you park adrenaline or nerves?

SPEAKER_03 1:43:21

I can imagine what you're doing toward towards the end, genuinely, um, it became less adrenaline. Um, and again, I I was more so like again, very experienced at it, and there were some things that would always trigger that spike, um, but you would suppress that quicker as well. But I I would say no, it was automated in the in the in the thick of it, it was automated. The in the in the really complex maneuvers, everything just became automatic. It's then when you paused, you had time to breathe, you're like, whoo. Then then the kind of you had to control it, you know what I mean? You were kind of in your flow when you're automating it.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:58

I resonate with that 100% because like people are like, What's it playing with uh Twickenham? That's one of the questions. And by the end, it was just work, yeah, rock up on the bus, noise, noise, noise. Just want to get into the change room so I can actually be myself, yeah. Uh instead of like acting in front of people and then you know, referees, bullshit, all pre-game. You know, I can't just have a normal pre-match like the rest of the lads get changed. I've got to chats do the coin toss or that, take the team out, noise, national anthem, noise, hucker, noise, get those flags off the field, please. I've been waiting fucking five days for this. Yeah, yeah. Can I just get down to doing what I can actually free up to do? Control the controllables, yeah. And then it was just work, no nerves. I just wanted to get through it. It sounds bad, but as soon as I can get through it, I could go see Joe and Thea and see my family and then kind of move on to the next one. I get it, and there's a moment you said that there was there's moments of kind of like bliss, or where you would score a try, yeah, or there'd be a break and play or an injury, and I'd just go like this pretty cool. Like, you know, swing low be going round, yeah. Um, don't know if they're gonna sing that anymore, which is a shame. But um it's just kind of little moments of where you get brought back to what's happening outside of your little bubble.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:22

I I I coach um or to speak to people um around stress is always in the gaps. When you're in your flow, when you're in the thick of it, you're not stressed. You're not, you know, if you're experienced anyway and if you've done it enough times, you would you stress is before, it's afterwards, it's in those pauses where you've got time to think, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:40

And I'll tell you what stress is is is post is like straight after the game, uh I learned very quickly to be aligned with Eddie's um post-match thoughts because the last thing you want to do is is create a headline you know, saying or contradicting what he said. So instead of like you know, the stuff people don't see, you know, I'm not celebrating a win, I'm looking for the media man. I'm going Gareth, you know, where's where's Milsey? Yeah, Milsey, what's Eddie saying? And then I'm like, okay, okay, bang, bang, bang. So I'm creating my my my narrative, I'm getting on board with what the boss is saying. Yeah, so it's like work straight back into work mode, yeah, yeah. And then you've got to do post matchup.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:16

And you've learned that, you've learned that from experience. That is the epitome of experience. You've had experiences and you've just adjusted what you do to it. And with anybody trying anything new, you've just got to get experiences at it, and don't be afraid to mess up a little few times. Dylan's messed up a few times.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:31

Though I on the media thing, I did um I did uh a presser one day and uh a headline came out because you can't control the headlines, it's the fucked up thing on the media. You can write a really good kind of or have some really good comments, but they just write the the headline and they wrote this headline one day and Eddie just called me and said, mate, what the fuck's this? You want to be a media fucking pop star, mate? I said you can fuck off. It sounds like I'm telling a joke, but I'm not. China. No, but well Japanese. But he basically goes, like, look, if you want to like if the team read this, and I said, Eddie, I I didn't say that if you actually read the article, he's like, I don't care, mate. They're gonna read the fucking headline, and he goes, You can fuck off. You want to be a media pop star, you know, you're supposed to be the fucking captain. So I learned real quick. Tough love. And there was other staff in the room, and they didn't like flinch, they just sat there while I got bloody um sheltered at. But I learned quickly that day.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:33

Um, like tenter in the deep end, don't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:36

Next time, just and and then from there, like I treated the media with um caution. No, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:41

Um, just I'm gonna wrap this up now, Dylan. But I just want your chance to plug your book and if you want to um please. There's one sat there. Come on, show us the front cover. It's your I don't want to hate my face. Don't you get the choice? You can't change your face, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:57

That's the back. It says um it's called the hurt, which isn't I'm not a victim, by the way. But um, you know, rugby is great for the soul but terrible for the body. And that's my face. That's a beautiful thing. It gives um, I don't know, what am I talking about? The hurt. Uh it's got no dirt in it. You know, I talked to a former player, yeah, I won't mention his name. He's like, mate, who have you who have you done who have you done over in your book? And like this whole kind of concept idea of like to sell a book, you need to fucking throw people under the bus. And I said, um, I said Brownie. Oh, there's a clue.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:31

Was he worried it was him?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:33

No, he the the the Mike Brown just asked, and um I was like, nah, like I'll I've I've fucked up enough in my and I've got enough to talk about. I don't need to throw anyone under the bus. Um, but it just gives like um an insight into the realities of the game. I think we all see the the polished kind of thing on the 80 minutes at the weekend, the tight white shirts, yeah. Unfortunately, but I just try telling uh a tale, a non-fiction tale, um, about what the game's really like. And it's it's not trying to um expose the game, it's just showing people, you know, when they go home after they've had their five points, um, guys are gonna, you know, people are uh being put back together and and get so it's an unth it's love love that we've done a full circle, it's an authentic look at uh at rugby.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:23

Um, you know, again, one of the chats had with Rob Parker, Bobby Parker, as you said, a friend, a friend of yours, um, former league uh player, and he was popping, he he admits this, he was popping pills to deal with the pain, and you know, like you said, people going home to do uh going to their dinners, and you know, but the realities of of battle for for you guys is is something very different.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:45

Yeah, it's a it's it's a uh attritional game, like mental and and physical, and I I try to cover a lot of that, but um yeah, it's just the stuff that people don't see.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:57

Um but yeah, no if you wait till Christmas, it'll be in the bargain bin 99p, or it's on Amazon pre-order now.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:04

I'll be I'll be reading it, mate. I look forward to it. It's uh you know, this is I'm talking to an experienced man um who's got, and again, everyone listening, um, you know, there's there's very few people out there that can um have the same experiences of as far as being in charge of an England team in such a successful period, and part of that success will be down to the man he is and how he uh captained that team. So all fair credit to you, mate. Respect from me. Uh and again, and thanks so much for your time today. I've taken up way too much of it and uh get looking forward to getting stuck into some sweet corn.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:34

Decent. Thank you. Cheers, man. Uh like I said, fan of the the pod. Um good luck with it, and uh I'll probably have to listen to myself back, won't I?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:42

Uh that's optional, mate. That's optional. All right, let's get some.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:46

Cheers, man. Cheers. Hygiene handshake.