Jonny: My Autobiography (55 page)

But this season with Toulon has been out of this world and now it’s time to celebrate. I used to drink once every few years. I’m now probably down to once a year, if I’m lucky – and this is it. I want to spend time with my teammates and I want be there to say a goodbye to Sonny Bill and Tana, who are leaving to return to New Zealand.

The night out goes the way almost all of them do for me. And the aftereffects carry on, just at they did after the 2007 World Cup final. The next day, when Shelley and I are due at a team barbecue, I’m still being sick. When we arrive, I get out of the car to help direct Shelley into a parking spot, but she drives into a wall because I’m neglecting my duty, bending over vomiting.

HAVING picked up the pieces in Toulon, I do not want to have them scattered once more with England. Last time it felt so difficult, so awkward, and impacted badly on my game. My concern is what effect another dose may have on me, should I go on the upcoming summer tour to Australia.

The other issue now is this back injury. I’d probably just about be fit for the Test matches, and with such uncertainty, there is a good argument for staying at home and recuperating.

Philippe Saint-André is pretty astute and so I go to him for advice. He says you’ve got a bad back, it’s going to take a while to heal, you’ve got the opportunity to have the summer off and get back firing for next season. Why not have a bit of a breather and do what’s best for yourself for once?

A week later, I’m on the plane to Perth. It was inevitable, I suppose. I went on the Tour from Hell in 1998. I toured South Africa in 2007. I have never shirked a challenge. It’s part of my values system that is never going
to change. The England situation is difficult, but that’s no reason to avoid it. Just because it hasn’t gone my way doesn’t mean I should immediately turn my back on it and run. I won’t give up. What I need to do is face up to my problems with England and get everything back to normal.

As far as I know, I am still the first choice number ten. I need to show that I am worthy of that position.

My own sense of awkwardness, my own paranoia, is not helped by the fact that I am literally on the fringes of training. For the first couple of days in Perth, while the squad train as usual, I do my own exercises with the physios and conditioners on the touchlines to try to get my back completely better.

After three or four days, with a week to go before the game, we have our first leaders’ meeting where we talk game tactics. How are we going to play? I get the impression that everyone is turning their attention to Floody. The conversation is directed largely through him. What possible moves should we do? I wonder if something has been said in training that I don’t know about. Something seems pretty set.

The first I see of the actual make-up of the team is in a squad meeting a few days later in the team room when it’s put up on the board. And, no surprises, I am on the bench.

During training, in the lead-up to the game, except for only a few minutes, I’m one of those making up the opposition. This is completely understandable because Floody needs time to get comfortable and confident, but I don’t get the idea that I’m to be brought on. No one says at a certain point in the game, we’ll look to get you on. I’m just there on the bench if I’m needed.

My consolation is that we have been told that pretty much everyone
will start a game on this tour. What they’re probably doing is giving Floody a shot for the first Test with me earmarked for the second. That would explain everything.

For some reason the Australian media, though, don’t believe a word of it. When I do the usual midweek session with them, they won’t let it drop. They say to me isn’t this some kind of a ploy? Aren’t we all being set up here? Surely at the last minute, we’ll find out you’re starting?

But I’m not. The last time I was in the Subiaco Oval in Perth was seven years ago and I was in the team playing South Africa in the crucial 2003 World Cup group game. Now I sit on the bench while the game plays out in front of me, and two thoughts are spinning round my head – maybe this just isn’t right for me any more, and I still feel this is what I was born to do. One totally contradicts the other.

With eight minutes left, I get on to the pitch and everything suddenly seems so simple. Not easy, but it makes sense, I feel comfortable and natural. I’ve spent all this time doubting whether I belong here any more, yet I can still do exactly what I want to.

I just wish I had time to do more. In the changing room afterwards, I’m barely out of breath. I’m certainly not satisfied but I am slightly encouraged. The second half was a massive success for us. There’s a lot to look forward to and to work on for the second Test in Sydney. That could be a great chance for me.

The following Monday, we train at the Sydney Oval and I am handed a bib. The instruction is: reserves, line up on that cone on one side of the pitch. And over I go.

That’s confirmation of where I stand, my one shred of hope gone. Now it’s clear. Things have changed.

Thank God I’m room-sharing with Taity, my good mate, who is not going through a particularly good time either. We try to help each other along. We share our problems and try to motivate ourselves and each other. Every night we tell each other how good we are going to be the following day.

I tell myself my skills are going to be so good tomorrow, I visualise myself tearing up the starting-team defence with my attacking play. But then I wake up in the morning with my heart beating at a million miles an hour and those old panic attacks kicking in. It’s the humiliation I feel. I don’t fit in, my motivation is falling and I can’t do this.

I don’t know how much of this is my own paranoia, but I have no idea what my teammates think of me now. All those years I’ve been talked about in a certain way; all those years I felt that I was thrown back in the team as soon as I regained fitness to sort everything out. Everyone knows how proud I am, but now it almost feels like it’s the end of the road for me, and they don’t know how to respond.

My only form of mental escape is to overindulge in my individual skills, which means I get back late from training every day because I stay so long kicking. Trying to improve has always been my way of staying sane. What this means is that I have little time to get ready for the afternoon weight sessions, so I ask Calvin if I can stay at the hotel and do my exercises in the small gym there. It’s a bit easier, anyway. I still get recognised by rugby fans over here, and I have to admit that I like the peace and quiet and the relief of being hidden away from everyone for a while. It’s sad to say but perhaps the hardest part of all of it is watching the other players laughing and joking with each other, clearly thriving in a situation that I find so painful.

Then comes the Wednesday media session. I sit down with the journalists, a smile on my face, and try to pull off the façade of not minding too much when they ask how does it feel to have been dropped? Tell us about Toby Flood, they say.

These are the same people who spent the Six Nations asking me about how badly I was doing, now asking me where do you see your career going? And do you think you’ll get your place back?

But I have to bluff it. They ask me so what has Johnno said to you about where you stand? And has he told you what he wants from you? What have the coaches said to you about this? The trouble is, I have to make those answers up.

I wonder if I should initiate a chat with Johnno and Brian, but I don’t. Maybe that’s not the smartest response, but I feel quite stubborn now. By this time, I’m interested to see when they are going to make the move.

Yet on the surface, maybe it’s not such a crazy situation at all. I’ve been dropped to the bench. It happens, all the time in fact. What’s to get het up about? It makes for a very convincing argument – just get over yourself and get on with it like everyone else. Perhaps that’s the way I should be dealing with it. If only I was that strong right now.

On our day off, I go for a long walk on the beach. I try to work it out in my head and see everything in a better light; I want to get back to being myself. But, on this tour, I know that’s asking a lot. This tour is hurting me and I’m letting it drag me further and further down. It seems the only way I’ll find the right perspective is by seeing it through and then getting far away from it all.

Never has the world seemed so false as it does after the second Test. I am on for the last half hour. When I come on, we are two points down, and after
about a minute and without so much as a touch of the ball, I am called upon to kick a penalty from 40 metres out. That gives us the lead, which we manage to defend to the end.

Afterwards, the journalists say isn’t it ironic, this situation? You come back to this ground where you won the World Cup, and again you hit the kick to win the game for England against Australia – you couldn’t have scripted it better.

What a load of shit!

But I’m just too exhausted to respond with any passion. I’ve simply had enough of all this. It’s been a long tiring year and, right now, I just want to get away to a big holiday with Shelley; and I want to get back to Toulon, where rugby feels the way it should and where I feel wanted and valued.