Mike Phillips fires back about alleged tempestuous rivalry with ex-All Black Justin Marshall
Mike Phillips has had his say about his alleged feisty rivalry with Justin Marshall. The ex-All Black outlined to BBC Sport’s Scrum V podcast in March that the pair of scrum-halves had their differences which even boiled over into a Millennium Stadium tunnel altercation in 2007.
Marshall, who spent two seasons at Ospreys following a stellar Test career, clashed with ex-Wales No9 Phillips during an EDF Energy Cup semi-final and tensions spilt over after the full-time whistle. “He grabbed me by the throat after the game when I tried to shake his hand,” said Marshall on the podcast. “That’s how wound up he was. He was angry.
“By God he disliked me. A lot of it was really personal. ‘You’re rubbish. What are you doing out here?’ Blah, blah, blah. At this stage, I’d played 81 tests for the All Blacks so I thought I was okay!”
Phillips has now played down the rivalry between the pair, who went on to become teammates at Ospreys the following season. Speaking to walesonline.co.uk from Dubai where he is now a consultant with sports management company World in Motion, the 99-cap Phillips said: “It wasn’t like that at all. The way I looked at it was: He’s Justin Marshall, he’s got 80 caps, he’s been one of the best in the world and I’m going to try and beat him. I want to be the best in the world.
“He’s arguably one of the best that’s played the game and you want to push yourself to be as good as you can be. Me giving stick to people on the field was always about me, it wasn’t about anybody else. It was to spark that competitiveness in me or maybe, at times, I was a bit nervous or edgy. That day he mentioned in Cardiff, I was good mates with a lot of the Ospreys boys like James Hook and Lee Byrne.
“Hooky said after: ‘Fair play, there are no friends with Mike on the field’. I caught him in the face a few times. But he’d be the first person I’d speak to after and a few people didn’t really understand that about me. It was never personal with anyone. You just want to win so much you use anything you can.”
What were they like as teammates for a year in Swansea? “I didn’t really speak to him that often but what I did see was that he was an absolute winner, a competitor. Even though he was at the end of his career, he wanted to start every game. He wasn’t always great in training on a Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe a bit stiff, but come Saturday he was easily one of the best players on the field.
“That’s what I took from him really. Tuesday is important but it’s all about Saturday. That’s when it matters. I remember I got picked against Gloucester in the Heineken Cup. As soon as it was announced, he threw his toys out of the pram a little bit and that surprised me.
“But the era that he came through was dog eat dog and that’s what made him so good. I never saw myself as competing against him because we were at different stages in our careers. But what blew me away was just how much he still wanted to win and how good he was on game day.”
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
27 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
27 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
27 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
27 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
27 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments