Starling Boris - Open Side

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

FIRST EDITION

Sam Warburton 2019

Cover layout design HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph Andrew Brown

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Sam Warburton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Extract from Western Mail, 17 October, 2011 courtesy of Western Mail/Media Wales

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780008336578

Ebook Edition September 2019 ISBN: 9780008336608

Version: 2019-07-23

To my wife Rachel, daughter Anna, my family and close friends thanks for being on the journey with me, supporting me and helping me through all the tough times. I could never have done it without you.

Friday, 30 June 2017

The Rydges Hotel, Wellington, New Zealand

Two in the morning.

Cant sleep. The witching hour, when the darkness comes flooding in: thoughts tumbling and cascading over each other like a Snowdonia river in full spate. The darkness comes flooding in, and its all I can do to stop it drowning me.

Everything hurts. My body, my mind, my heart. Everything. Im a wreck.

Its easier to list the parts of me that arent in pain. My eyelashes. Thats pretty much it. Ive had more than 20 injuries over my career: the concussions, the broken jaw, the plate in my eye socket, the trapped shoulder nerve, the hamstring torn clean off the bone, the knee ligaments.

Before I go out to play these days, I have to neck painkillers while the physios strap me up like an Egyptian mummy. I have to stand there butt naked in front of them, cupping my twig and berries, while they bind my knees, my ankles, my shoulders and my elbows.

Its not just tonight. Its the relentless grind: week on week, month on month, year on year. Smash and be smashed. Try to recover. Smash and be smashed again. The equivalent of strapping myself into a car like a crash test dummy and driving it at a wall every weekend.

I get out of bed. Shards of pain as my feet touch the floor. I push myself slowly upright, gritting my teeth as the aches flare and settle.

If my bodys only at around 70 per cent fitness, my mind feels around half that. Im exhausted, but also wired: antsy, yet craving rest. Yes, these are the small hours when everything seems worse, but even in broad daylight the doubts and questions are never far away.

Sam Warburton shouldnt be captain.

Sam Warburton shouldnt be playing.

Sam Warburtons past it.

What I know is that there are plenty of people out there who think that.

What I fear is that they might be right.

I take one step, gingerly, then another, and another. Walking hobbling, more like across the carpet over to the window. I pull back the curtains and look out.

Below me is the Wellington waterfront. Its quiet and empty now, but earlier this evening it was packed, as it will be later tonight and tomorrow night. Many of these people will be wearing red rugby shirts and will have saved up for years to come all the way across the world just to watch us play.

Because tomorrow evening Im going to lead out the British and Irish Lions for the second of three Tests against the All Blacks. We lost the first in Auckland last week, which means we have to win this one to stay in the series. Ive played in some big games in my life World Cup semi-finals, Grand Slam deciders, Lions Tests against Australia but nothing that comes close to this.

Nothing that comes remotely close.

The best of the Home Nations, a once-every-four-years touring team, against the double world champions. I came off the bench in Auckland, but now Im starting and I simply have to deliver.

It should be the highlight of my career. It feels like anything but.

This is a game thats been the biggest part of my life for almost two decades, a game that has largely defined me. Its a game I love. Rather, its a game I thought I loved. Right now, I hate it.

I want to be one of those fans, on the piss and singing their hearts out, with no problem more pressing than who gets the next round in. Instead, Im here, torturing myself with questions to which I have no answer. Why? Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I putting myself through all this pain, all this pressure, when I could be doing something anything else? Why am I in a job which right now I detest?

Round and round and round. Body, mind and heart. Physical stress, mental stress and emotional stress, all working on and off each other. I feel as though Im in a submarine going deeper and deeper, springing leaks as the hull creaks and flexes, and soon Ill come to the point of no return, the moment when the pressure gets too much and crushes me like a tin can.

Two in the morning, and no one to talk to.

For once in my career Ive chosen to have a room on my own rather than share with a team-mate. Its the captains prerogative, to have a room to himself, but one Ive rarely used as I dont like to be set apart from the other boys.

This time, I have. Ive told everyone its because I need the sleep, which is true my daughter Annas not far off a year old, and like all babies shes up more times in the night than a vampire but its not the whole truth either.

Its because I need the space too. The six weeks of this tour are what my entire career has been building towards, and I want to win so much, so much, that the desire is almost in itself a physical pain. Another physical pain, more like.

A submarine. A volcano. All this pain bubbling up inside me, and if I dont deal with it, its going to explode and consume me in all its molten fury.

I need to talk to someone. There are several people I could call, but theres only one person I know will really understand. I dial her number.

Sam? Her voice is full of concern. Its lunchtime back home in Cardiff. She knows what time it is where I am, and that I wouldnt be phoning for no reason.

Ive had enough, Mum. My throat is tight with the effort of not bursting into tears. I really have. Im just going to go.

Go where?

To the airport. Do a bunk. Leave all my kit here, get on the first plane home. Ill be in the air before they realise Ive gone.

I didnt, of course. Can you imagine the headlines?

LIONS CAPTAIN DOES MIDNIGHT FLIT.

WARBURTON QUITS.

THE RUNAWAY SKIPPER.

Id never have lived it down, and rightly so.

But at the time I was deadly serious. And no one knew, apart from my mum. She talked me down: told me that I didnt owe anything to anyone, so all I had to do was get through this week and the next and then the series would be over and I could do what I wanted.

She was right, of course. She knew the way love for and hatred of rugby oscillated within me, because they did for her too. She loved what the game had given me and the pleasure Id got from it, but she hated seeing me beaten up, or under the knife, or criticised. Even though I was 6 ft 2 and 16 stone, I was still her little boy.