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'I was linked to teams as ridiculous as Saracens... none of it was true'

By Liam Heagney
(Photo by Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)

Mike Brown is meticulously applying the finishing touches to his preparations as he gets ready to finally get back to doing what he did on a weekly basis for 17 seasons – playing rugby at the highest level. Not since a March 12 spin for Newcastle versus Saracens has he been in the thick of it but that will change on November 17 – a whopping 36-week gap – when he plays for the Barbarians against Harlequins, the club where he was an emblematic influence ever since a 2005 pre-season debut.

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Life has changed hugely. Brown and his soon-to-expand family have returned to the greater London area following their solitary year up north, he has enrolled in a masters in sporting directorship at Manchester Met University and all the while is still keeping himself fit, relentlessly ensuring he is ready to go immediately should a call come offering a contract to resume playing on a full-time basis.

That trail has been icily cold, though, despite media speculation to the contrary, particularly over the summer months. The 37-year-old could have bluffed when quizzed by RugbyPass about the delicate subject of suddenly being so unwanted as a rugby player who is without a job for the first time since he left school. However, telling fibs was never his style through a stellar 72-cap England career and he wasn’t about to start now for the sake of massaging his ego.

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“No, none at all,” he replied when asked if there genuinely was truth in any of the rumours he was off here, there and everywhere. “There was a period of about four weeks where I was linked to some teams as ridiculous as Saracens. I mean, they would never have picked me up. One because of my stint with Quins and two because they don’t need me.

“There was Sarries, there was Sale, there was Worcester at one point before what happened, happened [the club’s financial collapse], other people like that, and then it was Agen, but I literally haven’t spoken to anyone. None of them are true, unfortunately. I’m still waiting if one comes but it’s more working towards my transition and then whichever opportunity comes first, if it fits then that is what I will take.”

Team environment training had been his way of life but that was gone as soon as he exited the Falcons. It meant going solo over the summer at Cobham to keep the lungs bursting and the legs agile to ensure he is ready if someone does reach out with an offer in an extraordinary time for the sport in England with two clubs bust and the reduced salary cap biting hard.

“I still do the running sessions and I’m lucky to have a bit of a gym set up at home, so I have got no excuses,” explained Brown. “I have been on top of all that but I would still do that if I wasn’t a rugby player because I know how important it is to have a healthy living and mindset lifestyle.

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“I also believe that if I want to stay in elite sport I need to show athletes or people to be a certain way. I’ll stay on top because if that call does come… Since I left Newcastle I was doing stuff in the summer with Danny Care when he was getting ready to get back into pre-season and Niall Saunders, an ex-Quins teammate who left to play for Tel Aviv.

“I continued to run on my own but that became a bit bleak so I took it more into the gym fitness. But in the last few weeks, I have picked up the running stuff and gone back to seeing (sprint coach) Margot Wells again because I’m going to play for the Barbarians against Quins and Bath in a couple of weeks, so I have picked up training again so that I’m sharp, fit and ready to play some rugby.

“I’m ready to go. I was playing every week for Newcastle. Even though it was tough – without going into too much detail, the coaches reverted back to a type that was their way or the highway sort of thing – I was still playing to a decent standard and being able to do it every week so I showed I was still resilient and durable and the good thing is I have had decent rest (since then). I’m well rested so I’m good to go, but we will see how good in a couple of weeks when I hopefully run out for the Barbarians.

“I know that Quins will be putting out a full-strength team so it won’t be some sort of festival of rugby. It is going to be a proper game of rugby because they are getting ready for fixtures after a couple of down weeks and there will be people like myself who will want to do the best they can for the Barbarians shirt, especially me as it is my first opportunity.”

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Being jobless affects people differently. Some who earned their living in the public eye retreat and withdraw from being out and about, but that isn’t Brown. When he chatted with RugbyPass for more than half an hour last Tuesday evening, he was in his car heading south to Worthing, the National Two South club he has been delivering technical advice to following an invite from Jordan Hall-Turner, his 2012 title-winning Harlequins teammate who is the grassroots outfit’s head coach.

“I just help him out, dip in and out of coaching, technical advice, feedback to coaches, things like that. I’ve been there regularly Tuesday and Thursday nights and it’s a great place for people to cut their teeth. For someone like Jordan, it’s a great platform as it is a lot harder down those lower leagues, especially as a coach.

“I’m not that keen on becoming a coach but it is a good insight and understanding of what it takes to be a coach and the support they need. I’m just trying to drive the energy and the standards of the session and give an understanding that what they do in their limited time together on a Tuesday and Thursday night will replicate what they can produce on the field.

“If they get those Tuesday and Thursday nights right and do it with as much intensity and detail as they can, the game looks after itself. You think because they are a few leagues lower down than the Premiership the quality is going to be way off but it really isn’t. They are good-quality players. The difference is the mindset they have but when they get that application right they have good qualities, the same as the top players.”

Does Brown have an example of getting a marginal gain at this level? “We brought music into the warmup just to help pick up the energy and the mood. These guys have been on building sites or sat in offices all day, so anything that can help give a bit of energy before the session.

“That was something I suggested and they have done that the last few weeks. The boys are really liking it, Jordan liked it and it has helped uplift them. Just little things like that, overseeing that side of things. That is kind of what I need to be doing as a sporting director as well.”

It’s a juggling act, though, with Brown trying to keep fit while doing uni, helping out coaching and also networking with a whole host of various people to pick their brains while he transitions from playing rugby professionally into a new career. “It’s alright. Obviously, the cost of living at the moment isn’t great and the uncertainty of where that next money is going to come in to look after the family and stuff and yeah, trying to keep up the eating.

“I’m not one of those guys who is 110/120kgs and eats the house but I still need to keep the weight up. I have a relationship with Pro Athlete Supplementation. Even though I’m not currently a full-time rugby player they look after me in terms of supplements, so I’m very lucky. It’s just eating healthily as I have done throughout my career and taking the right stuff, but the main thing is the cost of living.

“Without regular income coming in and not having a job at the moment and then spending a lot of time on the road when I go to environments and meet people, spending money on petrol, spending money on my masters which is not cheap I can tell you that. When I go to the uni days I have to stay in a hotel in Manchester as it is about four hours, and I can’t do that (drive) a few days on the bounce.

“There are costs with that but I do believe you invest in yourself. I’m trying to be the same way I was in my rugby career as I am in my transition. Financially I have to invest in it like I did in my rugby career if I want to make it a success. That’s probably the main thing with anyone’s transition. It’s just that financial uncertainty which is the main worry for everyone.

“Everyone goes through it at some point in their lives, whether it is straight after uni or later on in their life or they change any job, any industry. That is just what I’m going through at the moment, but I do believe if you keep working hard opportunities will come. So even when I have those low, uncertain moments I keep going back to what I did in my rugby career, investing in it and working hard at it and then the opportunities came. I believe it will be the same with my transition.”

The upside to this waiting game? Having weekends free after a career where everything was dictated towards performing on a Saturday. “Sometimes I do go to Worthing games to help but I have a great time with family. The last couple of birthday parties with my son (Eliza) I had to miss because I was playing, so this year I got to go. I mean, it was carnage and I was exhausted afterwards but it was great.

“It was also his first day at school, he is five and he started in September. That was on a Monday at a certain time when I probably wouldn’t have been able to go (as a player). He starts at quarter-to-nine, the teams I played in were in at eight.., and I pick him up from school at the moment, spend time with him on weekends, help my wife out, and go swimming on the weekends which I’d usually have to miss. All those things.

“Other things I would never get to do usually in a week having to train is spend a couple of hours in the car going to see different people at different sports clubs and connect with different people. I would never have had the time to do all that I have done over the last six months. When I was in Newcastle we had two uni learning days at Manchester every six weeks.

“I would have only been able to go to one of those two days and that makes the learning quite difficult, having to catch up watching videos and stuff whereas now I get to do both days and it’s a lot better. There are all those positives of the situation I’m in, but I also would love, whether it is playing or not playing, to get my teeth into something now.

“You know what it is like when you are a driven individual who is used to working hard towards something, that is what I want to do now, use that drive and hard work for something significant now.”

Brown wouldn’t change much if he had his rugby career over again. “I’m not one for looking back with regret or wanting to change anything. There maybe would have been a time towards the end with England when I would have wanted to be myself a bit more. I withdrew when I was in the environment, wasn’t really myself.

“I just thought that was the best way, to keep my head down and do things, especially when I wasn’t playing and getting picked as much. I thought I would withdraw a bit, keep my head down, keep out of the firing line and just try and keep working hard and get back in. That may have let me down a bit in the end,” he explained before giving his view on the current England setup which picks up the thread with an Autumn Nations Series opener at home to Argentina on Sunday.

“England have got great talent, great strength in depth and that is experience and new players, I just want to see more consistency in their performance and if they are going to get consistency in performance they need consistency in deciding exactly how they want to play, their playing style and being really world-class at that. Then also the consistency of selection because there are still too many changes.

“A year out (from RWC 2023), I believe Eddie needs to nail down how he wants to play, nail down pretty much his starting XV or at least his 23, 30-ish players. You will get a couple of bolters in the last year that will push their way in or people may drop out through injury but there is still way too much change in selection for me.

“It’s things like Danny Care. We all know what he can do and he does it to a world-class standard, but taking him to Australia and then whipping him off halfway through a game and then he is not even in the squad now, it’s like, ‘What was the point? He is not going to do anything different that Eddie didn’t already know’. Just things like that and nailing down those people that are going to play the way he wants them to play, that will help the performance.”

When Brown does officially retire, how would he like to be remembered? “I always wanted to show passion, commitment, hard work, resilience, never say die, all those things I would want to see if someone pulled on a Quins or England shirt and I was sat in the stand watching.

“I always wanted to show that whether we won, lost or drew. If I was having a bad or good game there were things that I hold in high value that I would always show in the shirt, never giving up so if someone could say I showed those values for the team then you can’t be far off having a good career.”

Brown certainly did. So much so that when asked to nominate his favourite ever game, his answer is three-fold: the 2012 Premiership final win with Harlequins, the 2016 Grand Slam success with England, and his 300th club game running out under the lights at The Stoop with his son. “It shows how lucky I have been with the career I have had,” he beamed, delighted with his vibrant selection of match high points.

We’ll end with his funniest moment, playing Toulon away during the French club’s galactico era and skipper George Robson walks tipping over in the corridor, leaving his Harlequins team laughing their heads off as kick-off approached. “He gives this huge inspirational speech, trying to get us fired up because everyone is a bit flat, we’d been eating baguettes all day in France and the travel.

“French changing rooms always seem to have this slippy surface, he walks out, the live TV cameras are there, the lads who are subs and the staff are lining the corridor clapping us out and we just see George Robson, 6ft 4, supposed to be our talisman, our leader for the day literally absolutely stack it like Bambi on ice, falls over and the guys directly behind him in the tunnel are now pissing themselves laughing.

“The best thing was it was live on TV so that is now on YouTube forever, which is amazing. But also Joe Gray got a picture from the TV of the exact moment when he is slipping, with his face and the lads laughing, and put it on t-shirts and posters that went up all over the training ground in Guildford. That was hilarious. If it was going to happen to anyone it was best it happened to George Robson because he was a bit gobby. That made me laugh.”

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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”?

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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.

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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.

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