'It was like someone was stabbing me in the back of the heel... I'd sit down for two minutes and limp around to get moving again'
It’s a good job Mathew Tait wasn’t at Welford Road on Saturday. If he had he could have wound up saying something inadvertently about Leicester’s ongoing plunge towards the relegation trapdoor.
One of his moving on experiments after officially announcing his retirement as a player with immediate effect on February 26 has been taking up the mic and doing some radio punditry. This adjustment hasn’t been easy, so it was just as well he was nowhere to be seen with 14-man Leicester hammered by league leaders Exeter.
“It’s especially hard trying to remain relatively impartial,” Tait told RugbyPass about his temporary experience in the commentary booth. “I’ve had to keep moving the microphone away from my mouth because I’m shouting, trying to encourage on the pitch.”
Tait is still in and around the club a couple of days a week since pulling the plug on his playing career six weeks ago. It’s a training ground routine aimed at keeping rehab of his damaged achilles ticking along until June when he will probably change tack and go elsewhere.
Being so close, though, is awkward with results the way they are going. “When you see friends out there, work colleagues and a club you care deeply about who are struggling, you want to be able to contribute more than I’m able to,” he said, hoping an upturn in fortunes can get Leicester out of the hole they have dug into, starting next Friday at Tait’s former club Newcastle.
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“Regardless of all the preparation you do there is luck involved in everything in sport, but as players and coaches you have to look at ourselves and be accountable for where we find ourselves.
“The league itself is just incredibly tight. In all the time I was playing I can’t ever remember it being so tight. But ultimately it’s on the players and coaches. They’re the ones responsible for carrying it around, making sure the victories that are needed are achieved.”
It was last May when Tait made his final appearance in a Tigers shirt, the 33-year-old unable to escape the injury that forced him into early retirement. “I got an issue around the back of my heel and it just got to the point where I couldn’t really run,” he explained.
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After 15 years in professional rugby, including eight seasons as part of the #TigersFamily, Mathew Tait has called time on his career and today announced his retirement from the game.#ThanksTaity ? pic.twitter.com/Knf6pyuL9E
— Leicester Tigers (@LeicesterTigers) February 26, 2019
“It was like someone was stabbing me in the back of the heel. I’d sit down for two minutes, try and stand up and I would have to limp around to get moving again. The treatment and the rehab we did it ultimately wasn’t working. The advice was given and the decision made based on that.
“It [the heel] is not as bad as it was since I had the op. I’m still quite stiff in the morning time trying to get out of bed to get myself going. Once I’m up and moving around it’s not too bad.”
The difficult bit comes now for Tait – what to next do with himself? He’s far from sure and candid about how rugby players exist in a dressing room bubble far removed from the grind of a regular working life. In limbo, he hopes he will make the right choice and can move on seamlessly enough.
“It [retirement] is sort of the elephant in the room, as soon as you turn 30 everything starts to hurt that little bit more and you take a little bit longer to recover from. I was always proactive. When I was playing I’d be out meeting people, trying different things.
“The whole thing has come probably a year or two sooner than I would have liked and anticipated, but it’s very, very rarely in sport – particularly in this sport – that you go out on your own terms.
“I’m very fortunate I managed 15 seasons, which is longer than most. The hardest thing is there is so many institutionalised behaviours you just get used to doing. You’re told where to be, what you’re doing at certain times, are on a timetable every day and every weekend is based around feedback, feedback on your performance and what you need to improve.
Looking back on the best moments of 2018…
Mathew Tait's try-saving tackle for @LeicesterTigers is as much a life-lesson as it is a brilliant piece of defending ?
Never give up! ?pic.twitter.com/gZNOrvzwqN
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) December 30, 2018
“All of a sudden not having that day-to-day initially was quite nice, but now you miss little processes like that. There’s obviously the social side. Just being in and around the group and the collective that is all focused on the weekend, missing that and just the general being around the group, friends you have been there with for the last eight years.
“Things like that are taking time to adjust a little bit. I’m suspect that is going to be something I will have to deal and learn to cope with moving forward for a long while,” he shrugged.
“The honest answer is I don’t necessarily know (what career choice is next). I’m sort of generally interested in lots of things and the difficult thing is narrowing that focus. I’m just finishing my masters in sports directorship, the operational off field business side of sport.
“I don’t know whether ultimately I’d like to be back involved in sport in some capacity, but I’d like to go out of it as well just to get a different perspective. It’s a little bit of an information-gathering exercise for me over the next period of time, reaching out into the network and talking to people who very kindly offer to meet and share their experiences before I decide what is going to be next for me.
“A part of being a sportsman is you always have that end-goal of a game or just being better at your craft, that has always been the end-point. For me now it’s working out what the next end-point is, working just as hard to succeed at that.”
Capped 38 times by England and a starter in the 2007 World Cup final, Tait bowed out having playing over 200 Premiership matches for Leicester, Sale and Newcastle along with more than 60 European appearances. No wonder his injury-enforced departure prompted a wealth of warm tributes, kudos he allowed himself to uncharacteristically wallow in.
“I’m not normally a social media person but the club was very good in putting out bits and pieces. For a day I let myself indulge in it and read the nice comments. I was just really so humbled and blown away. The ones that probably mean most were from players you played with or against because they are the peers you judge yourself against.
“I’m lucky I have a few memories. The World Cup in ’07, just proud of the whirlwind journey. I’m looking back in hindsight with a huge amount of pride that we didn’t necessarily feel at the time because we lost.
“My time involved with the sevens in my early years, the Commonwealth Games and playing in Hong Kong, those sort of tournaments away from the pressure that comes with playing 15s.
“Other memories I treasure are winning the league with Leicester and captaining the team in a European semi-final against Racing at Nottingham Forest. Although we lost it was a very proud moment that I got to captain such a great club,” he said, his recollections even drifting back to how it all first started as a youngster.
Speaking after a Gallagher Insurance Train with your Heroes session at Ilkeston under-10s on behalf of Leicester, Tait concluded: “It brings back memories of my brother Alex and I. We started at Consett and there would be the odd day a Newcastle Falcons player would come to a club we watched with my dad from way back when.
“These kids have infectious enthusiasm, particularly as they have started doing contact, so they are all mad to run into each other and topple each other. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that wears off after a few years, that you go around trying to avoid the contact rather than trying to beat each other up.”
We were with @IlkestonRugby U10s last week, the local winners of our #TrainWithYourHeroes competition for @LeicesterTigers, led by club legends @TomYoungs87, Mathew Tait and Matt Smith. Take a look at the video here… #GallagherPrem pic.twitter.com/YFrYLIN82m
— Gallagher UK (@GallagherUK) April 3, 2019
Comments on RugbyPass
SBW is fast becoming a laughing stock, his misplaced comments & lack of insight Is actually pretty sad.
4 Go to commentsJust well you guys are couch 🛋 potatoes selector's, picking a team of greenhorns to play England! “What are you people smoking?” The halfbacks will be Christie, Fakatava, Perenara Props; Newell, Bower, Lomax, Tunga'fasi, Hookers; Asosa Amua when fit, Taylor, Samisoni,
11 Go to commentsQuite frankly, all this is a bit pathetic. The first time Wales get the Wooden Spoon in 21 years and everyone is on the bandwagon for a ‘play-off’ game. Wales have no obligation to Georgia and no obligation to the rest of the Six Nations to play such a game. If they want Georgia in so badly then they need to include South Africa into a Northern Hemisphere competition with 2 leagues of 4 teams with the top 2 competing for the Championship. Sadly, this will end Triple Crowns and Grand Slams forever. Is this really what you want?
4 Go to commentsI think Finau to start Blackadder to come on. Poss Prokter instead of Ioane, haven't seen much from Reiko so far this year.
11 Go to commentsJoe will have had a good chat with Dave Rennie, a smart move to begin with while it’s doubtful Fast Eddie will be consulted? Plenty of Aus players hitting top form so they should go OK.
3 Go to commentsMmm. Not sure I like this article or see it as necessary.
4 Go to commentsBlackadder but no Finau! 😀 It’s Razor so you are probably right, plus Taylor at 2…
11 Go to commentsThe strongest possible AB side would actually include Aaron Smith, Bodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock, Leicester Fainga'anuku, Shannon Frizzel.. don’t get me started on the rest of the injury hit brigade that got flung on the heap so left. Many a whole not getting filled as of yet.
11 Go to commentsI don’t think anyone knows what Schmidt will do, one thing is certain it ain’t gonna be all the picks we on the keyboard will think. My impression of him is that he will be looking at who can step up and what is the best combination. He will ignore individuals as he looks for guys who can build a powerful team and not just guys who can make a flashy run or ignore the winger as they want to score themselves.
3 Go to commentsSome dumb selections there. Not Porecki Not Donaldson Not Gordon Not Lonegran - both Not Nic White - Fines instead Not Liam Wright Not Paisami Definitely not Vunivalu Other than that not bad.
3 Go to commentsI've never been convinced that Patty T is a test match all black. Otherwise I probably agree it's the best side available to beat the poms. Caveat that Codie Taylor is yet to be seen and could very likely warrant selection by June. I hope that Razor brings the young loosies, half backs and locks into the training squad and develops/ selects the best
11 Go to commentsYou doing the same thing I disliked about the example of Samisoni Taukei'aho, Nick. He’s great the way he is, you’re trying to do what modern-day coaches frustrate me doing, turning everyone into the perfect athlete. Next thing you’ll be telling me you’ll bench him until he’s hit that arbitrary marker, and can’t overtake the current guy who’s doing all his workons. He’s a young Kieran Read, through and through, plays wide and has threat, mainly (and evident in your clips) through his two hand carry and speed. Just let him work on that, or whatever he wants, and determine his own future. Play God and you risk the players going sideways, like Read did, instead of being a Toutai Kefu. I mean I was in the same camp for a while, wanting our tight five to have the size, and carry ability, as the teams they were getting beat by. Now I’m starting to believe those teams just have better skilled and practiced individuals, bigger by upwards of 5kg sometimes, sure, but more influentially they have those intrinsic skills of trust and awareness. Basically our guys just didn’t know wtf they were doing. Don’t think I’m trying to prove a point here but hasn’t Caleb Clarke been in much better form this year, or does he just ‘look’ better now that he’s not always trying to use his size?
44 Go to commentsThe pack lacks a little in height for the line out and I wouldn’t be completely convinced by some of the combinations till we see it in action.
11 Go to commentsThe side is good but lacks experience. International playing bona fides udually trumps super rugby form for good reason. And incumbents are usually stuck with. Codie Taylor should start or come off the bench. B Barrett will start at fullback. Blackadder has not earned the position, Finau has. TJs experience and competitiveness earns him a starting role, Christie or Ratima off the bench
11 Go to commentsPretty good side. Scott Barrett should be the captain. Ethan Blackadder a great choice at blindside. He is going to go from strength to strength having made a couple of starts for the Crusaders. Scott Robertson rates him highly. Perenara could start a no 9.
11 Go to commentsI question and with respect. Was enough done over the last few years to bring through new blood knowing the Whitelocks and co couldn’t last forever. There should have been more done to future proof the team. New squad new coach, he and they weren’t set up well. IMO
6 Go to commentsJacobsen will definitely be in the 23
11 Go to commentsLots of discussion points, Ben, but two glaring follies IMO: 1. Blackadder at 6. Has done nothing so far this season to justify his selection. Did you see him going backwards in contact at the weekend? Simply has not got the physical presence at 6: we need a Scott Barrett or a Finau (or wildcard Ah Kuoi), beasts who are big enough to play lock, like Frizzell. If Barret played at 6, Paddy could be joined at lock by Vai’i or one of the young giants we need to promote, like Darry or Lord (if he ever gets on the field). Blackadder best left to join the queue for 7. 2. Not even a mention for Christie? Ratima gets caught at crucial times at the back of the ruck when he hesitates on the pass. The only way he starts would be if Christie and TJ are injured.
11 Go to commentsWhat a dagg in more ways than one
6 Go to commentsRegroup come back next year but sack some of the coaching team and don't be like the ABs last minute sacking. If Crusaders don't do well ABs don't do well.
5 Go to comments