'I just gave him a wee pop to the balls… I might need to be a bit careful after all this Joe Marler stuff'
As a 15-year-old flanker growing up on the industrial fringes of Livingston, Luke Crosbie knew he could never match his Edinburgh rivals for wealth or opportunity. He didn’t have access to the rugby sessions, the lavish facilities or the international expertise of the private school lads from the city. West Calder, his own high school, didn’t have a rugby team.
What Crosbie did have was a work ethic that would make the average leaf-cutter ant blush. Even back then, he was driven by a ravenous hunger to make it in the game, an anxiety that the boys he was competing with for age-grade selection might be training more, could be edging ahead if he let his guard slip and spent a night on the PlayStation, not the weights bench. He couldn’t beat their relentless exposure to rugby, but he could damned sure work harder.
“It was a tough gig coming through to Edinburgh myself to give it a crack at Currie,” he told RugbyPass. “Those boys were at schools like George Watson’s where they were getting a lot of rugby training. I wasn’t, so what could I do? What work could I put in to try and do more than the training they’d do at school?
“I thought: if they’re getting the rugby, then I’m going to need to get something else. They might be doing more, so I need to keep doing more, keep on at it. I would cycle up to the gym in Livingston with my mate after school and we’d train for a couple of hours. I got proper into that.
“I had to get those sessions done or I couldn’t relax. Other boys were at boarding school where they were getting training all the time. That sort of work helped me get my foot in the door and I feel like I’ve stepped up and proved myself whenever I’ve had opportunities since.”
Legends of the All Blacks, the documentary featuring some of the greatest players to have ever pulled on the iconic black jersey
In those days, nobody knew much about this gangling brute of a kid. The regional selectors, Crosbie still feels, weren’t willing to back him over players they had watched and coached all season. “You’re coming in, say, with a group of Watson’s players, the coach knows them and the coach wants to look good and pick a good team, so he goes with what he knows well. I used to get cut from U16s basically for that reason.
“The Currie coach Andrew Jones actually emailed in and asked, ‘Why have you cut Luke? We need some feedback; we don’t think that’s fair.’ And then I actually wound up getting back in. It’s all about having equal opportunity. I understand it is tough as a coach if you don’t have time to see all these boys play.
“But there are a few boys playing at West Calder now, some have moved on to Currie and I keep in touch with them. I make sure they’re working hard and give it a shot, make sure their confidence doesn’t get blown because that rejection can make some people go into their shells.”
In continuing his prodigious rise at Edinburgh, a soaring ascent that will surely culminate in a Scotland cap before the year is out, and helping the next crop of Livi lads along the same path, Crosbie is proving a wonderful antidote to the posh-boy stereotype that still pervades the Scottish game.
That edifice remains, but it is shifting thanks to the emergence of blokes like Crosbie, the ferocious West Lothian tearaway, salt-of-the-earth Borderers like Rory Sutherland, Finn Russell the stonemason, Jamie Bhatti the cow-slaughterer and Prestwick’s finest, Gordy Reid, however you want to bracket the uproariously entertaining prop. The team is becoming more representative of its people.
“That’s what rugby is,” said Crosbie. “There are so many different players, so many different body types. You’re getting so many different personalities from across Scotland. It’s important everyone gets a shot at it and gets to almost understand the concept of what rugby’s actually like. Rugby is a complicated sport, maybe you don’t understand the laws – you’ve got to dive into it, try to understand it and you might like it.
Excited to be staying with @EdinburghRugby for the next few seasons ? pic.twitter.com/RiEguaihIk
— Luke Crosbie (@crosbiee5) December 26, 2019
“I just came across rugby going for a walk with my dad as a kid, saw folk running into each other and thought, let’s give that a crack. It looks better than being stuck in goals. From there, I grew a love for the sport and you start to realise there is an actual community that you can meet all these people and all these connections through rugby.”
The coronavirus pandemic has placed an indefinite hold on Edinburgh’s charge for the Guinness PRO14 title. They top Conference B after 13 games and have a Challenge Cup quarter-final against Bordeaux-Begles to play at some point. When – indeed if – those matches will be fulfilled, nobody can say.
If the crisis eases and Scotland’s summer tour goes ahead, the safe money is on Crosbie winning his first cap against South Africa or New Zealand. He has been in and around Gregor Townsend’s camp for over a year now and has the frightening speed and snarl to fit the coach’s blueprint. Townsend, like Richard Cockerill, loves the aggression and dynamism he brings to the party.
With all that is looming, and all the riches that could await in the very near future, how tough is it to stay rooted in the present? Crosbie framed his explanation in terms so simple even a dense journalist grasped it. “If you were interviewing someone else in three interviews’ time, and you’re thinking about that and you’re not prepared for this one, then this one goes to s*** and you’ve got nothing to write about.
Delighted to be called up! Thanks everyone for the messages? https://t.co/ysencepnM9
— Luke Crosbie (@crosbiee5) January 22, 2019
“Your whole process to get to that interview is completely derailed. Focus on each job as well as you can. Every step is a building block on a path to where I want to be, and enjoy the process. If you look too far ahead, in the game right in front of you you play s***. Then you can be shipped out of a team. It’s too intense an environment – you’ve got to fight every week to stay in the team.”
This is a confrontation that Crosbie has loved since the days of slugging it out with the Watson’s lads for an age-grade jersey. He takes joy in heaving his huge frame about, stampeding around open prairie with a gait that suggests the grass on which he is running has mortally offended him.
He broke his jaw against Zebre last season but played on nonetheless, more annoyed that the injury prevented him demolishing the post-match pizza. At Edinburgh, the staff call him The Terminator. “When you’re coming back from injury, the physios are constantly asking you, on a scale of one to ten, how sore is it?
“Well, rugby hurts anyway. I just thought, I’ll be alright and I got on with it. And my facial expression as well – if we’re doing conditioning, the boys say it doesn’t change, even if I’m knackered. It’s the same as a resting b**** face, I suppose.
“The Scottish pack were at the heart of a rousing afternoon… Jamie Ritchie and Hamish Watson hunted and scavenged like wild dogs, Nick Haining thundered around with and without the ball,” enthuses @JLyall93 #SixNations #SCOvFRA ???????
https://t.co/egfiMQoKRj— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) March 10, 2020
“I’m not like that off the pitch but on the pitch, at this level, and the reason Edinburgh have gone well is that we play our game and if it comes to it, we’re happy to stand toe-to-toe and go to work. I just enjoy getting stuck in with my team-mates; it’s all a laugh winding a few people up as well.”
There is, of course, one unconventional wind-up that made Crosbie Twitter-famous last season. Way before Joe Marler and Alun Wyn Jones, in a Murrayfield rout of the Kings, he squared up to irate lock JC Astle and delivered a swift back-hand flick to a very tender area.
“They got a penalty and their second row was trying to wind me up, slapping my chest, and he was looking me in the eye, so I just gave him a wee pop to the balls,” Crosbie explained. “He wasn’t happy with that, looked straight to the touch judge. As soon as I saw him getting wound up I thought, I’ve got him here. Off the pitch, it’s nothing like that, we’re shaking hands. I might need to be a bit careful with that after all this Joe Marler stuff.”
Perhaps, in the current circumstances, that would be wise. Still, there can be no denying that Luke “The Terminator” Crosbie does not lack for balls.
WATCH:
Comments on RugbyPass
Great insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
1 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
4 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
36 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
5 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
5 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
5 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
36 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to commentsThis is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?
35 Go to commentsWow, didn’t realise there was such apathy to URC in SA, or by Champions Cup teams. Just read Nick’s article on Crusaders, are Sharks a similar circumstance? I think SA rugby has been far more balanced than NZs, no?
4 Go to commentsBut here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.
36 Go to commentsIt could be coincidental or prescient that the All Blacks most dominant period under Steve Hansen was when the Crusaders had their least successful period under Todd Blackadder and then the positions reversed when Razor took over the Crusaders.
36 Go to commentsDefinitely sound read everybodyexpects immediate results these days, I don't think any team would travel well at all having lost three of the most important game changers in the game,compiled with the massive injury list they are now carrying, good to see a different more in depth perspective of a coaches history.
3 Go to commentsSinckler is a really big loss for English rugby.
2 Go to commentsThanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause
36 Go to commentsNo way. If you are trying to picture New Zealand rugby with an All Blacks mindset, there have been two factors instrumental to the decline of NZ rugby to date. Those are the horror that the Blues have become and, probably more so, the fixture that the Crusaders became. I don’t think it was healthy to have one team so dominant for so long, both for lack of proper representation of players from outside that environment and on the over reliance on players from within it. If you are another international side, like Ireland for example, sure. You can copy paste something succinct from one level to the next and experience a huge increase in standards, but ultimately you will not be maximizing it, which is what you need to perform to the level the ABs do. Added to that is the apathy that develops in the whole game as a result of one sides dominance. NZ, Super, and Championship rugby should all experience a boom as a result of things balancing out. That said, there is a lot of bad news happening in NZ rugby recently, and I’m not sure the game can be handled well enough here to postpone the always-there feeling of inevitable decline of rugby.
36 Go to commentsNo SA supporter miss Super Rugby - a product that is experiencing significant head wind in ANZ - the competition from rival codes are intense, match attendance figures are at a historical low and the negativity of commentators such as Kirwan and Wilson have accelerated the downward spiral in NZ. After the next RWC in 2027 sponsors will follow Qantas and start leaving in droves.
4 Go to comments