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'I'm now banned from going all-inclusive...' - Gloucester's Fraser Balmain on holidays, Danny Cipriani and World Rugby's latest scrum tweak

By Liam Heagney
Gloucester's Fraser Balmain clashes with Saracens' Maro Itoje in May's Premiership semi-final (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Fraser Balmain doesn’t beat about the bush when telling RugbyPass how he is finding the extended Premiership club pre-season caused by next month’s World Cup.

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“I can’t say I am a big fan… I’m desperate for a game to come up,” quipped the Gloucester tighthead, definitely speaking from the perspective that all work in training and no weekend play is making him a dull boy.

He wasn’t very dull when he skipped off on holiday at the end of term but, given the over-indulgence that resulted, it’s perhaps best that the new Premiership season isn’t getting underway until mid-October.

Balmain tipped the scales last season at just below 117kgs, around 18st 4lbs in old currency, but the jolly 27-year-old Geordie learned the hard way this summer about the dangers of holiday high jinx, an escapade he now looks back on with a smile and a chuckle.

“I got a couple of trips away. I took my mother away for her 70th and went to Cancun with the missus. I’d a good break. I went on an all-inclusive for the first time and I think I’m banned. I was pretty heavy (coming back). It goes on really easily and it harder to chip away off. I’m in the middle of attempting that. 24-hour room service killed us.”

Getting rid of the excess, though, hasn’t caused any panic. Gloucester’s approach to these extra weeks at their disposal before the rugby starts has been to nurture rather than beast their players, a tactic prop forward Balmain is grateful for as he builds towards the October 19 kick-off away to Sale.

“They have given us time to work on specific things rather than just four more weeks of getting beasted really. They have used it really well here,” he explained. “Because we have the extra weeks we started off a lot more gradual. Dan Tobin is in charge of our strength and conditioning and he is terrific, the best I have ever had.

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“He eased us in and we worked on running technique and building up that endurance rather than coming in, as it normally happens, and start off with a mad rate up straight away. Because we have had time to ease into it there has been a lot fewer injuries and lads are feeling a lot better for it.

Danny Cipriani is one exception, though. Having pre-seasoned with England and failed to make their World Cup squad, he is not due back at club training until next week. Every cloud has a silver lining, though, Balmain suggesting that England’s loss will become Gloucester’s gain once the maverick playmaker gets back into the swing of things at Kingsholm.

“I would have picked him if I was a coach,” he said, bemused that his colleague’s face didn’t fit with Eddie Jones. “I was pretty surprised he was left out. I don’t know what the reason was. It was pretty disappointing… but from a selfish point of view, he is going to be here the whole time, so you can’t really complain too much. It wasn’t the best for him obviously but I’m sure he will come back from it.”

Bouncing back precisely sums up Balmain’s re-emergence at Gloucester. He felt he was going nowhere at Leicester – a certain Dan Cole was at the top of the queue – and he took remedial action to ensure his development was no longer stunted.

There were only 2,286 Premiership minutes during his six seasons at Welford Road: 26 starts, 38 runs off the bench as well as an appearance as an England replacement in their 2014 fixture against the Barbarians.

However, he felt he could be doing much more and while moving clubs was a danger as All Blacks World Cup winner John Afoa was still on the Gloucester books when he signed, the switch has paid off as he has packed 1,682 Premiership minutes in 24 starts and 10 runs as a sub in two seasons at Kingsholm.

Afoa’s departure last summer to Bristol naturally helped. Balmain missed just a single fixture in Gloucester’s unexpected 23-match run to the Premiership semi-finals and that exertion, which featured 148 tackles, 106 carries, 107 metres and a few offloads thrown in for good measure, didn’t go unnoticed as he finished the year being named forward of the season by Johann Ackermann and his coaching team.

“I got stuck in a rut at Leicester and was probably never going to get first choice or be able to battle for that really,” said Balmain, recalling why he felt the need to escape the Tigers and embrace a different challenge.

“Coley [Dan Cole] is pretty set there and rightly so. He has performed year in, year out. Mentally it was better for me to start afresh somewhere and Gloucester was a club I had always liked as a player. They are always big into their forwards so I thought it would work well for me and they have got a huge fanbase. You don’t want to play at a club where there are not many fans. That was a big selling point.

“They said where their aspirations were, where they wanted the club to head to. Johann then came in and he is very good to say where we want to go and what we want to do and the way we want to play. It was all there and I have to say they have delivered on every aspect of that. It has been a terrific club to play at.

“I’m playing, so that is a big change! Probably getting used to playing week in week out is the main way to improve. I’d like to think I’m probably more consistent in the scrum and trying to get my hands on the ball more. I feel I have improved here and it’s going pretty well.

“Certainly as a front rower you are never going to recreate a scrum in training the way it is in a game, the way a ref refs it, so that is the main way to improve in that area. Don’t get me wrong, you can do a load of training and other things. You can certainly improve your skills and fitness that way. But as a prop, the best way to improve is playing.

“We were reasonably happy with how things went last year, where we ended up. We would have like to have kicked on a bit more but the main focus for the team this year is we are no flash in the plan, that it is not a one-off. We know we have got a big challenge to back things up. It’s a bigger test this year… certainly, the marker is laid down there by Saracens and we need to step up it.”

 

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Gloucester are clear on what the next step is to assist their progress, earning a home semi-final rather than have to go away to a rampant Saracens. What is less certain is whether they will need to adjust the scrum that Balmain consistently drove all last season.

It was mid-July when World Rugby outlawed the practice of front rows placing their heads onto opposition players’ shoulders between the call of bind and set on engagement. Balmain, though, can’t see the difference and he wishes the administrators would stop their constant tinkering with the set-piece that is the cornerstone of a prop’s importance.

“I don’t quite see what difference this one has made. I was watching the (Test) games, the last ones that were on, and I don’t think they were being refereed at all so I didn’t really see much change.

 

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“I have been happy the whole way through. Last year, yeah, there was probably a bit too much pressure on heads, but it was just part of the game. You can’t make the scrum a 100 per cent safe thing. It’s part of the game and part of why people like it, that physical battle, and if you start tweaking with it too much it will probably ruin what is already there.

“I’m not too keen on them changing the rules all the time. I thought it was pretty good as it was. The scrum is pretty safe. It’s very rare you get an injury as long as you train people early on what to do and if does collapse, what to do then.

“I have played there my whole career and you get used to it. If you don’t like that you wouldn’t play prop. It’s pretty simple. Most props are similar, they don’t like too much change.

“Really, you get the odd freaky accident but I don’t think you get any more than tackling someone. It is part of the game and that is why you like it. I don’t see the problem. If you get one team whose tactic is to cheat and not want to scrum, the scrums will collapse all the time and you’re going to have to reset them.

“But if you are trained right from a young age the right sort of technique, the ones that got at each other it tends to stay up and be a good battle. It’s just about teaching people the proper way to scrum rather than tweaking rules.”

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Jon 3 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This 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 comments
j
john 6 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But 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.

28 Go to comments
A
Adrian 8 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks 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

28 Go to comments
T
Trevor 11 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

21 Go to comments
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