Jonny: My Autobiography (16 page)

To try to relax and take my mind off what’s to come, Leon Loyd and I go to the cinema. It’s not far into the centre of Richmond but we drive, which is our first mistake. We can’t find anywhere to park. We drive round and round until we eventually decide to cut our losses and park round the back of the
cinema in the hope that no traffic wardens are doing the rounds, because they wouldn’t be too impressed.

That is our second mistake. After the film, we return to a clamped car. It’s now around 11 o’clock, there is a massive World Cup game the next day and we are standing around in the dark, making phone calls and trying to get someone to unclamp the car.

This takes God knows how long. And it’s not good for me. Before a game, I like to know where every hour is going, so that every part of my preparation is right. I can’t handle unforeseen events. I start getting edgy. I should be in bed.

And that’s it. Never again do I go to the cinema the night before a game.

The game starts at an incredible pace. It feels more urgent, intense than ever. I feel I am working massively on instinct.

I take a pass from Daws, dummy-switch with Phil de Glanville, hold the ball, step, spin, find more space, offload. It’s going just about OK, practice and hard work are paying off, but it feels like it’s taking all I’ve got merely to stay afloat. We are matching the All Blacks on the scoreboard. The intensity, however, is unreasonable.

I have the ball again. I’m looking around at where to play next and make a miss-pass out to Jerry down one side, shouting to him use Lawrence, use Lawrence, who is outside him. As a strong ball-carrier, it’s an opportunity for Lawrence to truck it hard and find his way forward through some weaker arm tackles.

Jerry kicks the ball instead, a good kick under pressure, which bounces into touch by their 22. He then turns to me and shouts: Don’t ever fucking throw that shit at me again! That’s your responsibility, you deal with it!

Just what I need. Physically and mentally, I have taken on all the responsibility I can anyway, and the message here is that all the decision-making is to come back to me, the whole lot. I have now got my outside centre and star player, who is, like me, clearly a little stressed, telling me that he only wants the ball when it’s bang on for him. I wish I could make the same demands for myself but against New Zealand, the perfect situation doesn’t often come around.

I’m almost thinking that the wide part of our back attack is largely out of use, out of order. It reduces my options and I’m now not only having to play against New Zealand and make my own decisions, I’m having to be careful about my own team.

I’m not sure it was that bad an option, anyway. But while I understand his frustration, why not tell me he didn’t want the ball? When I don’t want to be thrown a pass – which happens often – I make sure I don’t get it by saying so very loudly. That’s what communication is for. He could have told me there’s space, kick long, right. I would have appreciated the help.

And accompanying all this in my head is the nagging thought that if we lose this game, it’s going to be my fault. Our future path in the World Cup, any disappointment, is going to be traced back to me.

It doesn’t help that I miss a couple of early penalties. We are in touch, but having to chase. Into the second half, we have the scores level again when Lomu finally gets away. I sprint across the pitch, too far away to make any impression, watching him on the outside, looking unstoppable, going through one, two, three and then a fourth tackler. It is almost like I am 16 years old again, sitting in front of the TV watching the semi-final of the 1995 World Cup.

After that, we don’t score another point.

I can’t get my head around defeats like that. Final score 30–16 to New Zealand. I want to deal with it. I want to break it down in my mind, understand just why it happened and what it means. I want to know: How did I really do? No one has the answers. Instead, I’m left with a feeling of helplessness and intense disappointment.

I could sit around the hotel wallowing in it, or I could accept an invitation from Phil Greening to go out and escape. So, for once, I make a half-decent decision. I say why not? We go out purely in order to change our surroundings, because it’s too painful sitting there, and we end up in Home, a Leicester Square nightclub, a huge place with a number of floors and a VIP area where we encounter footballers Paul Gascoigne and Neil Ruddock.

This is kind of weird. There are women floating around and every time any of them get close to one of the footballers, a TV camera appears and tries to film them. I don’t quite get it. Is a documentary being made here, or is this just what life is like when you are a celebrity?

Also, it clearly costs a bit to live in this environment. I’m drinking half pints of Diet Coke. When it’s my turn to buy a round, it costs me £250. Thank God for my England match fee.

The Tonga game is next. I’m rested and watch from the stands as we move past them with thirteen tries, two from Jerry, and not too much trouble. But the problem with losing to New Zealand is we now have an extra round in the knockout stage, which means we have Fiji five days after Tonga, and then, all being well, a quarter-final against South Africa four days after that.

I actually enjoy the Fiji game. I like playing against a team with that sort of attacking mindset because they never stop trying to come at you and you are pushed to the limits of your fitness, really blowing. I like to be challenged like that. It makes all the lung-busting anaerobic sessions really worthwhile.

What I don’t enjoy, though, is the two-on-one at the end of the second half, when I pass to Phil Greening, he scores a simple try and I run straight into a stiff-arm across the face from their hooker. He gets a red, I get carted off and don’t really come round properly until I’m on the physio bed in the changing room. That is one of the worst bangs on the head I have ever taken.

So we go to Paris to play South Africa, a game for which our preparation time is minimal. In my hotel room, where I spend a lot of my time, I get a call from Clive. Can I come and speak to you? The moment he says that, I know what’s coming, and by the time he’s at my door, I am resigned to it.

I have done really well, he says, I am definitely moving along the right lines, doing a great job for England. But for this massive quarter-final game, they want to go with someone who has more experience, is more used to high-pressure games like these and is a bit more familiar with a structured kicking game.

Clive explains all this at length. He does it well, and although I feel massively disappointed, I have so much respect for Paul Grayson that I don’t feel horribly hard done by. I get the message. Move on, these things happen.

I still don’t feel too emotional the next day in the team meeting. First Clive has an announcement. Jerry Guscott is injured and his retirement from international rugby is immediate. Next thing Clive does is flip over the flip chart to reveal our team to play South Africa and there it is – my name listed among the subs. Now I feel hot under the collar, embarrassed. I’ve been dropped and I feel people are looking at me.

Afterwards, Neil Back comes straight over and puts his arm round me.
Don’t worry about it, he says, there’s still three games to go. It’s not over. You’ll be back in there, so don’t let it worry you.

He didn’t have to say that. It catches me offguard a bit and as we walk out to the coach to go to training, I keep aside from the others because I don’t particularly want them to see how emotional I feel. It’s not that I mind about not being in the team. It’s the thought that maybe, actually, some of these guys really care about me. For two years, I hadn’t felt as though I was fitting in. I felt that people didn’t really trust in me or want me there. And now Backy, a guy with all that experience, whom I respect so much, has just said that.

On arrival, as we run out on the field for training, Mike Catt jumps all over my back. He’s on the bench, too. He’s great at putting the smile back on my face, and he knows when I need a little boost.

That’s two guys now, guys I admire enormously and with whom I’ll play for crucial years to come, looking after me well. What a huge difference.

I’m not very good at being on the bench. I don’t like it. Surely no one does. Sitting on the bench, watching two big, big sides going at it, and not knowing if you’re going on or not, is nerve-racking. All the time you’re thinking when am I going to come into it? When am I going to be a part of it? And, as a number ten, am I going to have to play a decisive role at the end?

It’s a tight game, going one way, then the other. The problem is that every time South Africa get within range, they send Pieter Muller up the middle, a centre who is about as big and hard to tackle as they come. Their ball then comes straight back to fly half Jannie de Beer, sitting deep, and we can’t get close to him. He starts firing over drop goals and we can’t stop it.

Joost van der Westhuizen scores a try for them just before half-time and we go in just behind. I come on with 25 minutes to go, and I can feel it. So frantic. But I feel I make an impact. My running game, I feel, creates opportunities, although we never quite manage to put them away. And de Beer keeps stretching their lead. He finishes with five drop goals. That is awesome. It’s also the end of our World Cup.