by Spend enough time with Will Carling and you come to a quick conclusion: his deep love for the game of rugby still burns as brightly as ever, desperate for the sport to succeed. Has that passion gotten him into trouble in the past? Definitely. That’s why, at the age of 22, he told the media to f— out in his third press conference as England captain. It’s also why Carling is convinced that Rugby Football Union committee members were desperate to get rid of him during his eight-year spell as captain, which included appearances in the 1991 Rugby World Cup final and three Grand Slams (to ending 11 years. -year of drought).
“Not to be funny, I put three of them against the wall on different occasions because I was so f—— frustrated with them. That’s not smart,” says Carling at lunch.
Whether it was an attendance fee in the amateur days, or arguing for the players’ parties to be moved to the games, Carling considers how quickly the RFU regretted Geoff Cooke’s decision to make him captain. youngest in English rugby history.
“They must have appointed a 22-year-old, who was meant to go into the army, privately educated – he must be perfect to captain England. And it turns out to be the nightmare that is arguing with them all the time, things would like to change from the players’ point of view, who are never happy.
“There was a whole list of things that were like, ‘Why can’t this bloody Carling go away?’ I knew they were after me for quite some time. After the 1991 Grand Slam we didn’t do a press conference because we were fed up with the hotel rooms calling the press, the players had had enough. I remember Dudley [Wood, RFU secretary] going, ‘You’ll get into that room’ and telling him, ‘I won’t’. They were mad. But, fix it there, guys. You don’t take care of us in any way shape or form.”
Not forgetting the almost comical circumstances of Carling’s sacking as captain before the 1995 Rugby World Cup, when he was caught on a hot mic referring to the committee as “57 old men”. Carling watched the Pilkington Cup final between Wasps and Bath at home and, with the low volume, couldn’t make out what the crowd was chanting. Rob Andrew, his team-mate and the Wasps No 10, told him afterwards: “You ruined that game, you didn’t. The crowd spent the whole time chanting your name.”
After Andrew and Dean Richards turned down the offer of captaincy, Carling hit out at Martin Bayfield before the press conference to reinstate him as England captain on the condition that he publicly apologise, two days after his removal. “Bayfield said, ‘I’m devastated’. When I asked him why he replied, ‘Take that broken up and you’re being replaced as captain, I don’t know how much a man can take’.”
Today’s English players could not be further removed from those times yet although there are various political quandaries and the game may seem alien to 30 years ago, the basic principles remain the same. That’s why Carling as a leadership mentor in the previous regime under Eddie Jones, having captained England in 59 of his 72 Tests, made a lot of sense. He worked closely with Owen Farrell in particular.
“I think it’s sad if that’s the end of his England career and that’s how it ended. He is a very proud and passionate England rugby player. And a very good one. I know there were a lot of comments in the media, on social media, and a lot of it was not complimentary. I think sadly, a lot of that frustration directed at Owen is frustration with the way England are playing and delivering on the pitch. And that wasn’t really his calling.”
Farrell’s generation has to handle social media but paparazzi noticed Carling in the 1990s, the face of the sport on such a scale that he appeared on television at the same time as Mr Blobby – “It was the funniest thing I hurt Noel Edmonds when I tried. on his feet, I could hear him squealing” – and he has previously discussed how the attention has affected him.
“Today people ask, could you do it with social media as it is? I do not know. It was pretty tough back then but if you’re England captain, you know you’re going to face more scrutiny than most.”
His friendship with Princess Diana, however, was on an entirely different scale of scrutiny.
“The front page is very different from the back page. Yeah, it wasn’t nice. Hey, a lot of that is my fault, you can’t complain. You have to learn. Relationships I got wrong … so that’s what they were interested in. You look back on it and you think it was all out of the question, but it made a good story.”
When asked about the proudest moment of his career, I expect to hear about ending England’s Grand Slam drought in 1991. Instead, Carling recalls his old midfielder Jeremy Guscott convincing on going to a pub on a suitcase for a drink. Carling’s last game as captain in 1996. The story when he was appointed was the “posh little idiot” trying to beat some of England’s tough men: Paul Ackford, Mike Teague, Peter Winterbottom, Paul Rendall, Richards. He walked into the pub that night and they were all there waiting for him.
“That blew me away,” Carling says, visibly emotional. “They were my heroes before I played for England. For me that was what it was all about. It’s not 80,000 people, because they don’t know who you are. They were. They had seen everything. They had taken care of this miserable little idiot who was meant to be their captain. If they thought I did well, it was a big moment for me.” Of that impressive group it was difficult for Richards to win, perhaps the offer of beer lying on the dressing room floor at Murrayfield is rarely accepted.
A round of rapid-fire questions follows regarding some of the game’s current burning topics, such as Test eligibility. “The only issue I would have is that when you make your choice, you make your choice,” he says. “I don’t think you will be able to play for another country when you play for one country. That doesn’t seem right to me, maybe that’s why I’m an old poet. If you have a grandparent, fine, those are the rules. But you certainly cannot change your mind. That seems to be getting a bit… you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
“Although someone like Bundee Aki [who qualified for Ireland on residency], watching him play, I don’t believe there is any lack of passion and commitment. I don’t think the Irish regret that. The man, I don’t think it does.
Why not? He lives here, his family lives here, that’s what it’s all about. This is where my family and friends are and who I play for. I get that and I have no problem with that.”
Regarding the sport’s relearning to accept its physical appeal again while maintaining safety, he says: “Rugby needs to use technology in the best possible way to protect players from injuries. But the rest is, rugby is a physical game. The demand for people to watch it, for some of us to play it, is the gladiatorial nature of it, the bravery of the people who play it.”
Mixed in are more golden sounds about his own career too – “I played the first few years professionally which were the f—— years of my life, because I didn’t know nobody what professionals should be” – praising the current England women’s team. “Great ambassadors for young girls in terms of bravery and commitment and respect and discipline.”
After much discussion about the quality of leadership in the sport (or lack thereof) past or present, I wonder why Carling didn’t decide to take the game by the scruff of its neck. “I love the game. It is exceptional. At some point, depending on the leadership we see, who knows?” The guy who went after the old farts running the show. What a twist that would be.
