Jonny Hill has a seminal summer ahead, not that you’d know it. First up, a Premiership semi-final at Leicester on Saturday. If Sale lose, it’ll be his last match as a Shark. He’ll become a father in early July, all the while preparing to move clubs, leagues and countries. His first child will be born in Swansea, where his wife Sarah, a former Wales netball international, is from, as the couple house-hunt abroad. Hill can’t say where his new deal will take him, save that it involves a language barrier.
So much upheaval, yet so little in Hill’s vernacular to suggest any of this is remotely stressful.
“I’m one of those people who’s just flatlining, chilling,” he laughs. “Whatever comes I’ll just… I dunno, for me there’s a big game this week, hopefully a big game next week, then I’ll have a good drink with the lads, pack my house up, head down to Swansea and then Sarah will have the baby there. In the middle of that I’ve got to find us a new house, and then get over to the new adventure.
“One thing at a time. I’m sorry, I’m not giving you much, but that’s how I live.”
If the future is hectic, the recent past has been just as turbulent. Hill missed the second half of last season with a serious knee injury. Then there was the altercation with a Bath supporter during the semi-final loss at the Rec a year ago. The man had been drinking and was verbally abusive. Hill, part of the coaching staff, reacted. In his statement to the RFU disciplinary hearing, said he removed the spectator’s sunglasses and wound up grabbing hold of his neck and shoulders.
For a time, the police were involved. Hill was questioned under caution and unable to play for Sale while investigations were concluded. A backdated ten-game ban was imposed by the RFU in November.
I’ve learnt my lesson wholeheartedly. It’s something I’m absolutely not proud of and won’t happen again.
Hill accepted the governing body’s charge and, in his official account to the panel, said his piece about all this. He tries to reflect philosophically on the ordeal. As part of his sanction, he presented to the academy players at Sale about the pitfalls of high emotion and charged environments.
“I took it all personally,” he says. “I’ve learnt my lesson wholeheartedly. It’s something I’m absolutely not proud of and won’t happen again.
“I did an educational talk with some of the young guys so I’m able to help them if they’re ever in a situation like that, to help them avoid it.
“It’s really important, if anything like that happens, to grab a teammate, grab a friend, make someone else aware of it to help you navigate your way through it. If you let it come at you by yourself, it can get you down.”
Between the injury and the suspension, Hill missed nearly a year of rugby. He threw himself into his rehab and drilled the Sharks lineout, kindling his joy at helping players improve.
“I’ve got quite a passion for coaching, especially around forwards and lineout stuff,” he says. “At this point, I don’t see myself as a director of rugby heading it up but I’d potentially like to help young players at lineout calling or help teams’ forwards. Being a lineout-calling second row, you’re sort of a fly-half in that when the ball goes off the pitch, you need to be able to think clearly and see straight.
“I’ve got a passion for farming as well, but it’s expensive to buy a farm.”
That second calling stems from Hill’s upbringing among the pastures of Shropshire. He has reams of cherished memories on the family farm, the chaos of snowy winters, the graft in the evenings, and the mischief he and his brother would wreak at livestock auctions, racking up bills on his father’s tab or deliberately bidding on the wrong animals.
“We were a bit of a double act going round the markets and things,” he says.
“When the snow hit, we used to have some incredible days going sledging. I haven’t got any children yet, but if I saw mine doing what we did I’d be going crazy. We were pretty harem scarem on the old sledging. Quad bikes involved, tractor tyre inner tubes – crazy.”
Home still holds a special allure. His love of the land, and its sporting community, burn bright.
We played Toulouse in the Champions Cup on a Sunday [in April] and on the Monday I was back home on the farm helping my brother out with the lambing.
“I always enjoyed playing other sports as well – golf, cricket, a little bit of football. I rode horses. I used to go hunting. I tried to connect with some guys in the countryside.
“At Sale, I do quite a bit of stalking with Tom O’Flaherty. We were up in Dumfries recently, we go around Macclesfield and the Peak District, then I get back to Shropshire to help out on the farm.
“We played Toulouse in the Champions Cup on a Sunday [in April] and on the Monday I was back home on the farm helping my brother out with the lambing. I’d love to have a smallholding of my own at some point – we’ll see.”
This roll-your-sleeves-up lifestyle is partly why Hill, who will be 31 this month, is unperturbed by the thought of stepping back into the real world, whatever that looks like.
“I’ve always worked. I’d finish school at age 12, 13, 14 and go work on the farm in the evenings. Even if I don’t get a job coaching or haven’t got a smallholding, I’m always going to work. I don’t see me just doing nothing. Retirement doesn’t scare me – I’ll just go and get a job, it’s not a problem. That’s my outlook on life.”
Recently, the fanfare of the British and Irish Lions has prompted some nostalgia. Hill was a tourist in 2021, a year after winning the Premiership and Champions Cup double with Exeter. In the dog days of covid, the arm-wrestle against the Springboks was played in empty stadia, with players sealed in bubbles and loved ones marooned back home. In its own way, he says, it was a magical experience.
“I was thinking about the tour the guys are going on this time and they’re going to have an incredible time. They’ll be able to fly their families out, travel around Australia with their families.
“We didn’t have that. We got to know each other so, so well. I got to know some guys I grew up watching. I spent a lot of time with the Irish boys, I was around Finn Russell a lot and he was great craic. I wouldn’t change it, mate. Something which is so, so special.”
Rather than team room histrionics, Hill was at home watching the squad reveal on his PlayStation 4.
“The actual announcement day is just surreal.
I was by myself. I just hit the deck and cried for about 20 minutes.
“I was by myself. I just hit the deck and cried for about 20 minutes. I didn’t know who got in the squad after me, so I had to look again. I saw Sam Simmonds made it and I had to give him a call.
“It wasn’t something I’d earmarked. I’ve never really set goals. I’m quite laid back and whatever’s in front of me, I’ll just go after it. To get selected was incredible, mad.”
Hill is typically pragmatic about his decision to leave England, in the process ruling him out of a potential return to the Test arena he last graced two years ago. The farm life, he says, can be a magnet.
“My brother hasn’t left Shropshire, my sister hasn’t left Shropshire, my dad hasn’t gone too far either. Rugby gives you a springboard to see different places and different cultures. I’d always wanted to do it, and when the opportunity came, I’d rather go than not go and regret it for the rest of my life.”
In the here and now, Welford Road looms large. A pair of English heavyweights, forged on the muscle and dynamism of their packs. Monumental head-to-heads everywhere. Handre Pollard and George Ford the string-pullers in an intoxicating fly-half tussle. Ollie Hassell-Collins and Tom Roebuck galloping in open prairie. Hill could fight for aerial supremacy opposite Ollie Chessum, one of the Lions in waiting.
Sale bossed chunks of their recent showdown in the East Midlands before falling to a 44-34 defeat. They did the business in Salford 39-25 back in December. It’s a fiendishly tough semi-final to call.
“When we played them three weeks ago, a lot of people said to me watching the game it was like a Test match and when you watch Test match rugby, a lot of it is on the gain line,” Hill says.
“It’s a game I relish. I’ve always enjoyed going to Welford Road – it’s a great arena to play in and being in this Sale pack, I enjoy playing with these guys and testing ourselves against other packs.”
And so, to Leicester. A life-changing few months begins with 80 bruising minutes.
“I know what’s left is a lot shorter than what’s gone before. I’m really trying to enjoy every moment for what it is.”
Sounds a really grounded man. Bodes well for the future when his playing days are over. If the next adventure is in France, plenty of farming there - and a government and society that values farmers.