'I was on the sideline going, f***, I only retired a year-and-a-half ago and this is ridiculous'
Before we get to the savagery of modern rugby, life in France and with Scotland and the years of graft under the brilliant Vern Cotter, there’s something obviously different that strikes you about Nathan Hines. It’s not his hulking form – that much is certain. At 44, he still looks like he could do a very useful turn in the engine room. You fancy, if he had the choice, that’s exactly what he’d be up to, rather than the forwards coach post he has held at Montpellier for the past three years.
Look a little closer, though. The glint in the laptop monitor isn’t simply an overexposed webcam. Are those shiny dental appendages braces? The lip-shredding train track numbers for which a plook-ridden teenager might get mercilessly teased?
“Yup,” Hines says, grabbing at a silver bracket on his canine. “I got the braces on about eight months ago, so the contact training is out, but before that, contact was on. You never really want to stop but your body tells you that you need to. I still do the training with the boys, all the running and the stuff before.
“I had a tooth on the bottom that really protruded and the dentist said it would keep getting worse and worse and push further and further and I kept biting myself. Because I played rugby, I could never get braces on, but now I thought I’d get it done. And at the same time, Josh, my 11-year-old, got his done too. The health insurance here is pretty good.”
Somehow, you can’t imagine anyone taunting the colossal father or his boy about these snazzy additions to their chompers. Hines was a snarling beacon of longevity in a sport where brutality mounted by the season. Born in New South Wales, he came to Scotland in 1999 on something of a backpacking venture that sparked a glorious 16-year voyage taking him to the very peak of European rugby via Edinburgh, Perpignan, Leinster, Clermont and Sale Sharks. He retired in 2015 with 77 caps and a Lions tour to his name and joined Cotter’s Scotland coaching staff before the gruff Kiwi took him to Montpellier.
‘I was having so much fun holding them down that I couldn’t stop myself.’
The colossal Nathan Hines on Cotter, France, project players, and wrangling Ulstermen.
Coming soon, @RugbyPass pic.twitter.com/2IMz5DuLo2
— Jamie Lyall (@JLyall93) April 29, 2020
Hines played in World Cups and semi-finals and finals and is still revered in Dublin for his part in propelling a magnificent Leinster team to their crazy Heineken Cup triumph of 2011.
He was famously uncompromising, and an extremely intelligent footballer. There is a notorious clip of him wrangling three meaty Ulstermen against their will in a furious European battle with Clermont.
“I remember thinking to myself, this is silly, what am I doing?” he chuckles. “But then I was having so much fun holding them down that I couldn’t stop myself. I was just stupid, wasn’t I?
“I could have let go a lot earlier and it would have been fine. I was getting punched in the face by Pedrie Wannenburg and the more he punched me in the face, the more I wanted to hold onto him.
“I just don’t like losing. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with being confrontational. When I get poked at, I don’t like it. Did I ever go out purposely looking for confrontation? Not really. But I didn’t mind giving a bit of niggle or just being uncomfortable for people now and then.
“How long can I hold these three guys down for? What can I do to you? You’re not going to beat me; I’m going to get you to do something to make us win. Although my competitiveness probably got me in trouble more times than not.”
If ever a game was wild enough to make Hines wince, then it can safely be placed in the ferocious category. When he talks about the bludgeoning visited upon today’s players, it is worth paying attention.
There the big fella stood on the Stade de France touchline in 2017, running the water and the messages for Cotter inside the Parisian cauldron, watching as one by one, Scotland’s players were carted wounded from the paddock.
Greig Laidaw wrecked his ankle, John Barclay was taken off concussed and so too was his replacement John Hardie minutes after. The same fate befell Alex Dunbar and Fraser Brown later in the match. Josh Strauss, somehow, lasted the course despite damaging a kidney and being lost for the remainder of the championship.
“I was on the sideline going, fuck, I only retired a year-and-a-half ago and this is ridiculous. The amount of stress on players’ bodies at the moment is really bad,” Hines says. “The load, especially in the northern hemisphere, is huge. In the south, it’s not as bad – but still bad.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is an opportunity to reduce load on players, especially in France where we start mid-August and go right through to June, it’s not amazing.
“Jason Ryan from the Crusaders came up to see us at Montpellier, and I went down there, and their season is so short that they get time to work on their coaching, the players get time to work on their development and their interests outside of rugby. I think it’s a good time to sit back and work out where we can keep players healthy.”
The answers to these sprawling and complex questions are not simple. From the pandemic and the political jousting between Bill Beaumont and Agustin Pichot, the hope is that a closer alignment between north and south emerges, the unlikely utopia a global calendar.
At the moment, Hines fears, there’s simply too much rugby, especially in France, where the mammoth Top 14 season leaves players like hamsters scuttling on a wheel. Clubs must field a minimum of 14 “JIFF” (Joueurs Issus des Filières de Formation) players per match-day squad. As explained by rugby Francophile James Harrington, to be JIFF-eligible, a player must have spent “at least three seasons in a French academy before the age of 21, or been licensed to play in France for five seasons before turning 23”.
“JIFF spots are increasingly more expensive,” Hines says. “That’s bad. We get average JIFF players being paid way more than they should because they’re JIFF.
“If I need a JIFF hooker, an agent knows I need a JIFF hooker, so he’s going to put the price up and you need so many JIFFs on the team. Georgia had nearly as many JIFFs as the French did last year – they come in to the academies early but will never play for France, which is a bit of a flawed system.
“And a player could play every game of the Top 14 season. If you lose the first couple of games, you want to put your best side out, but you can’t rotate too much because you’re limited by JIFF, but all your French players are injured or away with the national team. You’ve got the same guys playing over and over again. You’ve got 26 games plus Europe, plus any other finals or friendlies. It’s tough.
“I don’t know how they’re going to do it, because in the Top 14 all the presidents want a home and away fixture. But if you had 10 teams in the top division, and they played home and away, that’s six fewer games, so that’s not too bad.”
Convincing the supremos of French rugby to trim the league is likely to be about as straightforward as brokering peace on the West Bank, but for now, Hines has more pressing matters to conquer.
The past year has been a little upsetting, with his mentor and friend Cotter shunted upstairs to what felt like a ceremonial director of rugby position and eventually out of the club. In came Xavier Garbajosa with a reputation as a new-age man of sexy innovation and an impressive stint at La Rochelle behind him. The reality, for Hines, has been vastly different. Montpellier will finish the abandoned Top 14 in eighth place and were punted out of the Champions Cup at the pool stage.
“Vern values your input, he gives you responsibility – he gives you enough rope to hang yourself, basically,” he says. “He’ll tell you the destination and you find your own way, and he’ll guide you to reach it.
“Xavier and I are not too compatible as people and as coaches. We don’t see the game the same way, and that’s not a big deal at all, but you want to make sure you can voice your opinion and it is taken on and discussed.
“Rugby is a complex game and you need different views, different angles. Obviously the head coach makes the decisions but you want to make sure you give him all the information you can.
“It’s difficult when you want to help the team but it’s not a discussion, it’s not a group thing, it’s just, ‘I’ve decided this and that’s the way it is’. That’s what has happened this year. You try to voice opinion and it gets shut down and shut down.
“Ever since the start of the season it’s been difficult. And when he brings in another forwards coach, you know the writing’s on the wall.”
No surprise, then, that Hines won’t be back at Montpellier next term. He won’t be heading to Fiji with Cotter either. He doesn’t feel ready to become a number one yet, and didn’t put himself forward for the Glasgow job when Dave Rennie’s departure was announced.
At the moment, the family are mired in uncertainty, with the sale of their house falling through when the pandemic struck and no coaching offers forthcoming.
“We had agreed to sell the house, then the Covid hit and the people pulled out, and now we haven’t had viewings because of the isolation. So we have a house that we sold that now hasn’t, and we don’t know where we’re going. That’s a little bit stressful but it’s outwith my control, the whole thing.
“I’ve got nothing lined up yet. I’m looking for a home but with the current situation it’s difficult. It’s been a bit quiet.
“My agent has been talking, trying to find me a place to go. But I dunno, no-one is looking for a coach who still thinks he’s a player, apparently.”
With his immense experience and integrity, Hines has masses of nous to offer a player group. And maybe, once the braces come off and that unruly tooth has been hauled back into formation, a few bruising lessons still to teach.
Comments on RugbyPass
Wasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
3 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
3 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 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
3 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 Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 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!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 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.
30 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.
30 Go to comments