'It was a risk, I had an awesome opportunity': Henry Arundell

Described by Bath boss Johann van Graan as the fastest player he has coached since Bryan Habana, Henry Arundell has wasted no time in reacclimatising himself with the Premiership and international rugby.

The speedster has four PREM Rugby tries in five league appearances for Bath, the club he was always destined to play for, including two on debut and an 80-metre intercept against Bristol, and scored with his first touch on his England return against Fiji with another spectacular turn of pace, as he had when winning his first cap against Australia in Perth just two league starts into his pro career in 2022. The consistent theme here is that Arundell is never one to hang around.

At Bath, though, Arundell feels like he has found his proper home, with quite possibly the intention of seeing his career out there. Coming from a military family, the Cypriot-born player moved around a fair bit in his formative years, due to his father’s postings. But much of his growing up was spent in and around Bath, where he attended Beechen Cliff, the school that has also produced established Bath stars Tom de Glanville and Miles Reid and, before them, Club President John Hall. His maternal grandfather was a season ticket holder at The Rec.

“It’s my home town, it’s always been the club I wanted to play for,” Arundell said.

“I came here when I was a child watching games, particularly that 2014/15 season, when Bath got to the final, that was kind of the main year I was going. It is quite funny now having played with some of those guys – especially Fordy, for example, so that’s cool.

“They’ve been the best team in the league for the past few years; it’s not just the results, they’re an amazing group and there’s an amazing culture and Johann was a big pull with what he’s created here, and that appreciation of ‘we want you, we know what you can bring.'”

Another family relocation led to Arundell moving to Harrow, and it was whilst at the public school that he began to realise he was seriously quick, inheriting the genes of his mother, who was an athlete. Instead of falling under Bath’s radar, London Irish spotted his potential in a pre-season game against St Benedict’s at Hazelwood, the Exiles’ training complex.

At that point, Arundell had never played wing, which seems crazy to think now for someone so quick.

“It wasn’t until I was 15 where I was like, ‘I am actually really quick in comparison to everyone else,” he revealed to RugbyPass.

“I played 12/13, the first time I properly played wing was my England debut; I have been playing centres and 15 for most of my career and now it has become wing predominantly, and being able to offer myself at 15. You never know, one day I might offer myself in the centre.”

Others may have called the decision to cut short his England career and move to France after the 2023 World Cup as impulsive, given it put his embryonic Test career on hold.

“I like everything to be planned; I want to know every detail,” he said in an interview with Rugby Journal before the 2023 World Cup, dispelling any notion that the move to Paris was done on the whim of a young man seeking new adventures.

And now when he looks back on the bitter-sweet experience two-and-a-half years older and wiser, Arundell has no regrets about taking the risk and giving the Top 14 a crack with Racing 92.

“I think I benefitted from it; I think it is a lot more diverse playing in France, there’s lots more nationalities. Over here you get obviously a lot of English people, some South Africans, some Argentineans, a couple of Fijians, whereas over there it is very mixed in terms of Australians, Kiwis, Fijians, Argentinians, obviously there’s a big French contingent, who are, again, very diverse.

“You can learn a lot from them, especially having assistant coaches like Joe Rokocoko and Fred Michalak, two incredible players who have only just retired. So you learn a lot from them and it is similar with the Fijians, I learnt a lot in terms of attacking stuff – ball carries and skills, which I have tried to, hopefully, bring over here.

“It was a risk, I had an awesome opportunity, and I took it. Whether it went how I wanted it to initially, maybe not, but I think I learnt more than I thought I would, and I hope that’s the reason why I am able to contribute more now each game, because I have learnt different ways of doing things.”

Mentally his injury-disrupted, two-season spell at Racing was taxing. “Getting a hat-trick on my debut (away to Toulon), that was cool. But it’s hard to go abroad when you’re 20 years old. Don’t get me wrong, you get paid very well to play sport, it’s a privilege, but those moments in the winter and you’re on a five-game losing streak and you’re not playing well and you go home and you’re alone, your family aren’t there, your girlfriend can’t come ou because you’re either too busy or she’s not due to come out for another two weeks, you go, ‘this is actually quite hard now.’

“You learn to be by yourself; you learn a lot about yourself in terms of what you want out of the game; what do you want out of your career; what you want out of your life.

“I had a lot of sessions with a psychologist in terms of how I wanted to approach my career. I think before I was a bit immature in that selection would bother me too much, I was too focused on what external thoughts were out there about me, which is pretty normal for a young player, to be quite worried about that; I think it’s just a natural anxiety that comes with it. Whereas now, I like to take a new approach of having close people to me, who I care about, and to also really know why you’re doing it (playing pro rugby). Once you know that, it really is quite fun.”

Arundell has quickly endeared himself to the Bath faithful with his early season form – he is right up there in the metres run and clean breaks categories – and it comes as a big relief to the summer signing that he has hit the ground running.

“It’s everything I dreamed of, having been sat in the crowd for years,” he said about playing at The Rec.

“Running out in pre-season a few times I was really, really nervous and I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, why am I so nervous?’. But I think it was probably because of that – a combination of 15 years of being a fan and then actually getting to do it.”

For someone who only reached their 23rd birthday on the day of this November’s Fiji Test – what a way to celebrate by the way, Arundell has had to make a few important decisions. One was turning down Gregor Townsend, who’d first sounded him out about playing for Scotland after seeing him in an U20 Six Nations fixture, and learning of the Scottish ancestry, which is through his grandmother. Arundell also qualified for his birthplace, Cyprus, and for Wales, due to a paternal grandparent.

But the player with the Knightly-sounding name only wanted to be part of one realm and pinned his colours to England’s mast as quickly as he pins his ears back when getting ball in hand. Getting to run out at Twickenham for his 11th cap, two years after he’d made himself ineligible for selection by playing abroad, was a moment to cherish.

“Getting the chance against Fiji – it was my birthday that day, it was more the fact I took a risk to leave when I was in the England squad two years ago, and then to come back and now be involved in the Autumn, the feeling was more, I am kind of proud of myself  because I had taken the chance to go away and learn a different way of playing, work for different people, mature – because I think I needed to, and now I have come back and I feel more ready than ever.”

Arundell only had a fleeting taste of what it was like to back in an England team, given he played no part in the three other fixtures. But he’s been given a clear idea by Steve Borthwick about what needs to be done for him to become a regular on England’s wing.

“He’s been great. There is definitely a vision for me to be involved and it is on me to show aspects of the game that he wants to see, which is pushing the aerial stuff over the next eight weeks.

“But you don’t want to spend too much of your time focusing on England because you spend most of your time at your club. The ambition here is to have another special season like they had last year.

“Obviously, I want to improve and get selected for the Six Nations, and hopefully play more, but ultimately, you focus on what do I need to do to get better all the time rather than for periods of time.”