A breakdancing cage and the Worcester player who 'just fell apart'

Former England international Pat Sanderson has recalled some of the social fun that helped Worcester to beat the odds in their first-ever Premiership season. Promoted to the top flight after winning the 2003/04 Championship with a perfect 26/26 record after three successive years of heartbreakingly finishing second, the Warriors dramatically defeated Northampton on the final day in April 2005 to send Harlequins packing to the second tier.

It was an incredible feat for the Premiership newcomers to stay up and what immensely helped were the light-hearted moments during the course of the season which ensured the team bonds were immensely tight come the final day when their status was on the line.

Sanderson, Tony Windo and Matt Powell have now all contributed to Rugby Stories, the polished BT Sport podcast presented by Craig Doyle, which recalls the drama of that first Premiership season nearly 20 years ago, and England back-rower Sanderson told a hilarious story at the expense of his scrum-half pal Powell.

The now 45-year-old Sanderson, who won 16 Test caps with England, had known Powell from their time together at Harlequins and after the Welsh half-back had joined Worcester in the summer of 2003 to head up their latest promotion drive, Sanderson arrived at Sixways a year later to help the Premiership newcomers survive their maiden top-flight campaign.

Of great assistance to that survival was Sanderson enlisting Powell’s breakdancing skills to alleviate the tension with the Worcester relegation battle going down to the wire. “We had some really hard men in the pack whose job was effectively to give us dominance in the game, but you need your light moments,” he explained.

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“Matt was a brilliant, brilliant scrum-half… He was exactly what we needed on the field and off the field. He was grateful and he loved being the centre of attention. One of his big tricks was breakdancing every Saturday night. It got quite boring, truth be told. He had like three moves, like a fly thing and caterpillar roll which he got half good at.

“So, we were all on a night out, Matt was breakdancing and he had really gone to town that week. He had taken his top off, got his muscle vest on, got a headband on… It turned out it was the Gloucestershire breakdancing championship downstairs in the same pub, so we carried him down the stairs and we threw him into the middle of what can only be described as a cage with a bunch of breakdancers.

“All of a sudden, all this confidence left him. It’s like it’s the first time we gave ever seen it [Powell not confident in breakdancing]. He loved being the centre of attention and all of a sudden when actually presented with a serious challenge, he just fell apart. Every time he tried to get out of the circle, someone would throw him back in.

“One of the 40 brothers [the Worcester players] were throwing him back in and it culminated in this brilliant breakdancer basically doing a one-handed hip thrusting headstand in his face, and then taking a bobble hat off, pretend to wipe his bottom and flicking it in his face. The whole place just erupted and he never really breakdanced after that.”

As regards the drama of the final day shootout versus Northampton, the intrigue was added to by Shane Drahm playing in his final match for the Saints before joining Worcester for the 2005/06 season. Windo recalled trying to get in out-half Drahm’s ear, but it was to no avail as the Northampton kicker still did everything he could to relegate the Warriors.

“We were very aware that Shane was joining us the following year. I did sort of walk up to him at one point when he was preparing for a kick and said, ‘You need to remember where you are going to be next year, mate’.

“A wry smile came across his face but to his credit, he still slotted the goal. It must have been an incredibly difficult position for Shane to be in at the time. To be in a position to put his next employer in a lower league must be incredible, but that probably showed us as a group when he joined that he was the right person to join us because he didn’t shirk his responsibilities for a club.

“He was at the time committed to where he was and he was going to do everything he could to try and get Northampton the result on that day, which is exactly what you want from somebody when they pull on the Worcester shirt.”

• For the in-depth Worcester Warriors story, check out BT Sport’s new podcast series, Rugby Stories, part of its BT Sport Pods line-up of podcasts. Every Monday, Rugby Stories, presented by Craig Doyle, will spotlight and celebrate English club rugby history. Btsport.com/pods