Where it all started in 1972

1972 - Mini-Rugby in deepest Gloucestershire

It all started back in 1972. Someone threw a rugby ball at me, I caught it and the rest, as they say is...all about odd hairstyles, funny shirts, 50 or so lads and a muddy field. I found this picture recently, in a very old scrapbook. If you can find me, please feel free to post a comment.
When I rediscovered this old picture, I tried  to remember the names from way back, but regrettably the decades had dulled my memory. However, despite not being able to remember all of the names, I can remember running around in the mud and some of my very early games, as if they were yesterday. Looking back they were great days, but a far cry from today's fast paced, professional game. Check out those old leather rugby balls - if it rained, or the pitch was muddy, they would get heavier and heavier as the game progressed. But that was then, not now. Its good to look back, but life is in the now and in the days that lie ahead.

My speed and fitness levels have dropped since those days in the early 1970s (only marginally you understand). But one thing hasn't changed - my interest in the sport and passion for the game. I can still throw a mean spin pass, make a tackle and recently, in a passing game with a group of kids, I made a pretty good side-step around a friend, who shall remain nameless, but is a Fijian international (you know who you are). Passion still enables you to engage, even though your circumstances, experience or location may have changed.

If you have a passion for something, it can be a powerful motivator and that passion and motivation combined can be a great sustainer. Recently, I have been reading about a man called Caleb. The bible describes him as a man with faith and a man with a never give up spirit. His sense of vision allowed him to catch a glimpse of what the future could look like. 45 years later, he could stand on the hills he had only seen from a distance and call them home. The vision had become a reality, through passion, persistence and, there's no avoiding it, some pain too - because it took graft and effort. But through it all he, never lost sight of what God had showed him all those years ago - until the day he could stand on those hill tops. What kind of a future have you seen?

It seems today, in a fast paced, media driven world, that to delay gratification is a sign of weakness or an absence of "go get". There are some positives in living in and enjoying the "now" moment, otherwise the journey would be dull. But, no matter how quickly we may want to force the pace, there are some things that require time, commitment, passion, persistence and sometimes breaking through the pain barrier. Relationships take time to grow, develop and mature. Lets not be so professional with people that we forget to take time to invest in them.

I had little idea when that photograph was taken, where life would lead me. I can look back with gratitude, from a place I can call home, with a great family, with a faith that is as strong today as the day when I was first gripped by it and Gods compassion toward me.

However, I have discovered that, no matter how far you have travelled, there are still distant hills to be taken, still things to be done, still struggles to win through, still amazing things to see and experience. When others had fallen by the wayside, when others had given up or retired, Caleb was able say "give me this hill country". It doesnt matter when your journey started - why not let God give you a glimpse of a bright future and start on the journey to it today...

An Act of Remembrance

In sport, there's always a sense of the unknown attached to away matches. What will the opposition be like on their own patch? You leave the familiarity of your own ground and you have to compete in their arena, their territory. The test in the face of the unknown can be daunting. We call sport combat, but it isn't warfare. Rugby is a full contact sport, but it isn't armed conflict.

When you play in an away game, you can have all of your set plays worked out, you can know all the moves and calls, but it's often the intangible bond that makes a team a team that carries you through the pressure and the physical challenges. But it's not war.

I recently visited a very prestigious boarding school with a team. We played against a backdrop of rolling hills, woodland and the towers of the old school building, complete with turrets and gargoyles. What a place to play a rugby match. You could feel the sense of tradition and history. We made history too ending a 15 year wait for an away win against our opponents. But it wasn't hand to hand fighting or roadside incendiary devices. It was a game. A game, between 30 lads, who clapped each other off the field, changed, sat down and ate a meal together.

I took the opportunity to have a look around. As I walked the corridors and entered into a great hall, I was confronted with a series of portraits of young men wearing military uniforms. There were seven (7) of them in total. Closer inspection revealed they were all former pupils. They had one very distinguished thing in common. They had all been awarded the highest military honour - the Victoria Cross. Seven from one school.

As I read the citations of their heroic acts and the notes about these incredible young men, several who paid with their lives, it dawned on me, these lads had played the same sport, on the same fields we had played on earlier that afternoon. I realised the lads who had played earlier, were these men in the making and what a responsibility I have as a dad, a friend, a coach.

My thoughts turned again to the spirit there had been that afternoon - to win. The bible has a great insight into camaraderie: "a brother is born for adversity and there is one who sticks closer than a brother". I thought of the lads, who knew their team mates were there for them. I thought of the selfless sacrifice of the seven young men, looking out at me from their portraits and of all who were helped by their heroism. I thought of the man's man Jesus Christ, who said "greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends", then demonstrated that love for all mankind through his death on the cross. Truly the one who sticks closer to us, even than a brother.

What an away trip. But it wasn't war. There are those engaged in a more fierce away match. There are families affected by the loss of loved ones and those that carry the scars of conflicts past and present. As the day for Remembrance approaches, let us not only take a moment to reflect, but let's allow the remembrance to make us act: to be the brother for times of adversity, to be a friend that sticks closer than a brother and like many who we remember and Christ who gave his all, let us give something of ourselves daily in selfless acts. After all our great sport is just that, a sport, it's not warfare.

Running off the Ball - the Art of Support Play

Have you ever been involved with something and at the same time felt like a spare part? Or, simply felt like you wanted to take over, through sheer frustration or impatience? I'm not alone then?

It's like not getting your hands on the ball. Sometimes you can wonder "why am I on the park?" Its not easy playing a supporting role. But, as I've reflected on the art of tactical support, I've discovered there are critical moments in sport and in life, when "running off the ball" is a crucial element to a passage of play, or a season of life.

To perform a truly supporting role, even though you might not get your hands on the ball, you still have to run as hard as the player with the ball. Keeping pace with play, backing up, even to the point of tracking a ball carrier all the way to the try line, can be the key to scoring match winning points. Why?

Well, running off the ball has a number of very important tactical functions:

• it provides a ball carrier with an opportunity to safely offload a ball if he runs into contact
• it creates an option for an alternative play to be introduced
• it can create an overlap situation, where you are in the majority and the opposition in the minority
• it creates a defensive barrier by blocking space for the opposition to move into
• it enables an attacking player to move forward with confidence knowing someone has his back
• it allows for an attacking move to continue if there is a breakdown in play by being first on the scene 
• it enables a pass to be made moving the ball away from the opposition
• it provides an option to switch a running line and the angle of attack
• it ensures your team have a first defender if your ball carrier has lost the ball
• it has the potential to draw or stretch the opposition defence and allow more space for an attacker
• when the attacker scores, you can be the first person to congratulate him!! (why not?)

As I've thought about each of them,  I turned my thoughts to my life, my family, my responsibilities. Why not re-read the list, but think about it as a father, a brother, a son or a friend or colleague - or even a team mate.

As a man of faith, I have discovered that there are times when simply being there, backing up is really important. The bible has a very laid bare insight into the relationship between the man's man Jesus Christ and the close group of followers he had around him. At what was perhaps the most agonizing point of his life, when he was facing a destiny changing decision, the small group of followers gave in to fatigue and couldn't watch with him for a few hours. A few hours later, despite their supportive comments, the majority of them simply couldn't "run off the ball" with him, to the finishing line - something they later regretted terribly and made amends for through their faith and actions. Knowing someone is there, even if they feel like they're not doing anything particularly exciting, can be a massive boost to confidence, courage and sometimes, continuing with something.

Its easy to talk a good game. Its not so easy to play a supporting role, especially if someone gets the glory for scoring a try or making a touchdown, or firing in a 20yd shot into the back of the net. Its often exactly the same standing and watching a child, or encouraging a teenager (often without saying a word), or releasing a young adult to marriage, or saying goodbye to a loved one at the ultimate call. All of those moments are not about us, and yet in a strange way they are - for how we support, how we "run off the ball", can prove to be a decisive factor. When the temptation is to simply give in to fatigue, or at the other extreme, to dive in and take over, through either frustration or impatience - perhaps we should consider the tactical benefits of running off the ball...

Piano Players and Piano Shifters

An old, Welsh, coaching friend of mine once described a rugby team as being made up of "piano players and piano shifters".

A few of the younger lads looked puzzled, until the Celtic philosopher revealed: "the grunt and hard work comes from the piano shifting forwards, the fancy moves, running at angles, comes from the backs, the piano players".

The art of the armchair philosopher can be fickle, as he often yelled across the pitch "move you lumps of lard, or, get stuck in you fairies".

The fact of the matter is, a successful team needs a combination of skills, techniques, flair, power and vision. Every position in a team has purpose and every player that runs out onto the field of play has a purpose in the match.

The same is true in life: "every man has purpose and there is a purpose for every man". Our life mission is to find our purpose and live it out. The bible has a window into the purpose of the man's man, Jesus Christ. "for this purpose, Christ was revealed, to destroy the life wrecking schemes of the enemy" - now that's a massive purpose.

No matter where he is from, how he entered this world, no man is a mistake. Every man has intrinsic worth and is here for a reason. Our purpose may differ dramatically and for that reason, perhaps through ignorance, fear or even pride, we are inclined to place value on the known, or seemingly more important. But, I have learned, there is nobility in the purpose a man discovers and is diligent in.

Again there is some guidance from the bible when it notes - one part of a body can't say to another, I don't need you. It would look very strange if we were all one organ or limb! So, we need piano players and piano shifters in life.

The key is in understanding firstly, as a person I have purpose. Then, in discovering I have a
purpose, to work it out in the everyday. My purpose may not be the same as yours. So, let's be diligent in our own purpose and resolve to recognise the nobility of purpose in others. Let us, wherever we can, help our fellow man find his purpose, looking down on none, but valuing all.

Turnover Ball - Regaining Posession

Can you remember that one kid when you were growing up? The kid who would take something that belonged to you and tease you with your own stuff, making out he was going to give it back to you, then snatching it away at the last second.

But can you remember the feeling when you took back what was rightly yours and perhaps with more force than that one kid was expecting! Taking possession back feels good, right?

In sport, making a tackle, then recovering the ball, regaining ground lost to the opposition and especially re-taking the lead, feels good and gives any player, the team and the watching crowd a great lift.

In rugby union, turnover ball does exactly that. With my playing days over, I sit in the crowd or watch  from the touchline, but I still get a buzz when our lads counter ruck, or emerge from a maul with the ball the opposition took in. It's the same when we make a tackle, get back up and re-take the ball. Its almost like taking your stuff back from that one kid!

You see, when you retake possession, you've then regained options. Options that were not available to you when you don't have possession. I love it in American Football, after the celebrations, they literally make a massive team switch from defensive to offensive. When you regain possession - you re-gain options.

Life is the same. Its a harsh feeling when you feel you've lost something - a friendship that somehow has broken down, that loss of spark in a relationship, feelings of mistrust. Life can throw some tough passes at you too: a redundancy, financial hard times or simply that feeling of being sucked into a repeat spiral. Even if life is great, there is always new ground to be taken. New options to explore.

The bible has a great insight, when the man's man, Jesus Christ says "the thief comes to rob, steal and destroy" (we can understand that), but then he goes on to say "but I am come that you might have life - and that, to its fullest expression".There are so many people I know and perhaps even you and I too, that feel they have lost something of what life could or should be.Well, maybe its time for some turnover ball?

No one is saying re-taking possession is easy - after all, winning turnover ball requires a commitment to the struggle, sometimes absorbing the impact. But in the face of the effort required, let's remember, the man's man has committed to helping us make that turnover - if we will ask him. Just for a second, think about how it could feel: when you regain possession, it opens up options. Then, why not ask for his help?

Wearing my hero's socks!

Back in the days of flared trousers and tank-tops I was lucky enough to get on a school trip to watch the touring All Blacks rugby side. Taken in by the incredible pace and power of the game, I determined I would play like the team I had just seen and in particular, the great, All Blacks captain Graham Mourie.

Before my next game, I went to a local sports shop and bought my own All Blacks......socks. Black with three white hoops around the top. I discarded my school rugby socks, broke the rules and wore my heroes socks. It worked. Over the season, I became the top try scoring forward. I became the only player in an entire season to score a try against an all conquering, regional championship team as they swept every other team aside, without conceding a single try. My achievment even got a mention in Rugby World magazine. I was the English Graham Mourie - well, I was when I was wearing his socks.

Life, like sport, is filled with heroes and villains and I suspect no hero is perfect. However, as teenager, I saw something in someone else that inspired me to reach further. It wasn't really the socks. If it had been, they would have been no more than a luck charm or me following some kind of pre-match ritual. No, it was seeing someone I admired, doing something that I could actually see myself doing. That was inspiration. Something I saw, experienced, that called to something inside of me. The socks were just the way I expressed affinity with my hero.

There is an interesting account in the bible, of a time when a nation's leaders failed to give it the direction it so desperately needed. Sound familiar? For the record, there is a list of those responsible. Not surprisingly, the list contains politicians, religious leaders and the security forces. However, right at the top of the list, was an unexpected group: heroes! On a list of the great, the good and the powerful, the primary responsibility for taking a lead fell to the heroes and the question was asked; where are they?

Now, we may not feel very heroic and we may think the things we do are mundane. But as I look back to my formative years, my hero was simply someone who inspired me to reach beyond my immediate grasp, to travel further, to climb higher. I saw a "hero" and decided to have a go too. I may not have achieved the status of sporting legend, but who knows where I would have stopped or parked up, without the inspiration of a hero.

There's a generation looking for heroes. Sons looking for fathers, the lost looking for hope, captives longing to be liberated from the mundane. Where are the heroes of today? They have just read this blog.
So come on, its time to get our heroes socks out from the back of the drawer and go inspire a generation....

Crossing the Gain Line

If you want to move forward, be honest, taking a step back is not usually our first thought.

I know for sure that I have stood toe-to-toe, or gone head to head, maintaining my position, not budging, because I believed I was right. Looking back, I now realise, all I did was prove a point without making progress or developing relationally.

Rugby is one of those odd sports that to go forward, the ball has to travel backwards. The motion of passing the ball is a prime example - you must make sure the line of travel is not in front of you. In set play (a scrum or a lineout), the ball can actually travel 10-15m or more, back from the point at which the play started. Once the ball has travelled forward and past the point it started from, the team has crossed the gain line.

There is method in the apparent madness - by passing the ball slightly behind you, the next man can run onto the ball at pace and build momentum.

American Football is another exampe of the ball travelling back to ultimately go forward. The ball pops back from the line of scrimmage and to the quarterback (provided he isn't sacked) who launches it forward to a receiver who is running at pace.

Taking a leap requires momentum to bridge a gap - that requires us to back up and take a run at our target. Yet in life, in our realtionships we all too often crash away at the same old same old, making little difference, damaging what we are trying so hard not to.

Taking a step back not only allows us to regain momentum, but it often opens up another route forward - passing a ball along a line of players moving at pace, opens up options that are not available by simply crashing into the man in front of you every time you gain possession.

The bible has an interesting insight into the mindset of the man of men: Jesus Christ. It describes his attitude to the incredibly daunting prosepct he faced, after he had been tried and condemned to die - despite his innocence. He knew what was ahead of him and yet he is described as confronting death with a sense of what lay beyond it - "for the experience of knowing what lay beyond his personal loss, for others, he endured the cross, not considering the shame attached to it". On the face of it, the cross looked like a massive backward step and yet three days later and ever since, the impact of what he did is still being felt.

In what seemed like a massive step backwards, paying the ultimate price made it possible for anyone, through faith, to be propelled across a line, they couldn't have crossed alone. It was the ultimate stepping back to reach for the gain line.

The essence of team is about sacrificing self interest for the greater good. The nature of true relationship is about sacrificing self interest for the greater good. Maybe it's worth thinking about taking a step back, shifting a position, to cross your personal gain line.