LONG READ Tom Curry: 'If I'm ready and allowed, I want to play for England'

Tom Curry has invested in a remote-controlled lawn mower which he loves so much he has decided to give it a name. “We were going to call it Steve,” he announces.

“As in Borthwick?”

“I never thought of that. Oh Lord,” he says, eyes widening in alarm.

It is tempting at this point to insert a gag about one Steve being a pre-programmed robot incapable of changing direction and the other being a motorised grass-cutting device that ensures a nice stripe to the back garden but let’s not go there. Besides, it turns out the spelling of Curry’s remote-controlled Steve is different – Stive – after Stiga, the manufacturers. So no relation. 

More of Borthwick and his stuttering England side later but for the moment let’s enjoy the mental image of Sale’s destructive splatter tackler pottering quietly in his grounds in the south Manchester suburbs. Injury, and the pick-up in the weather, has seen Curry devoting a lot more of his time to his garden of late.

“I love to be outdoors. I think I’d like to be a landscape gardener if I wasn’t a rugby player. It would be fun,” he reflects. “I do a lot of gardening. I don’t know if I’ve got green fingers – we’ll find out if everything comes through –  but I really enjoy it. Out in the garden you’re doing that zone one, zone two low-level fitness but it’s also just nice to be out there in the sun.”

This mid-career version of Curry then is a more rounded one compared to the rugby obsessive of his youth. It is not that he cares any less about his rugby but he accepts there is more to existence than an oval ball now.

Was I selfish in so far as getting myself right and doing everything I could be as good as I could be? It took away from a lot of other aspects of my life but at the same time I wouldn’t change the approach I had.

Mark one was bordering on the unhinged, a fixated ultra trainer who, in the company of his twin brother Ben, dedicated everything to the pursuit of physical gains. That tunnel vision sometimes came at a cost.

“My girlfriend and I were together when we were younger, we split up for a bit, and then coming back now there’s definitely a difference,” he says. Did rugby’s all-consuming nature play a part in the split? “There was probably an element of that,” he admits.

Curry Mk II now lives with Lilla, having moved out from sharing with Ben five months ago, plus Toby the dachshund and Chubby the golden retriever puppy. 

“Toby likes his own space. They went to day care for the first time together and I think he was a bit embarrassed to have a big floppy puppy chasing him around. They’re two very different characters but they’re getting together. It’s cute.”

It is a blissful-sounding existence, part pet-parent, part Alan Titchmarsh, but he cannot escape the conviction that it was his preoccupation with the game and all those training-on-top-of-training sessions helped to make him the rugby player he is.

“Looking back, I think: ‘Was I selfish in so far as getting myself right and doing everything I could be as good as I could be? It took away from a lot of other aspects of my life but at the same time I wouldn’t change the approach I had.”

Picked by Eddie Jones for the 2017 Argentina tour, he became England’s youngest Test forward since 1912 on that trip – a fresh-faced kid just out of Oundle School, rampaging around without a care in the world.

“When I first started, I was just throwing myself into the game – all I wanted to do was play the next game and the next and the next. When you’re in such a state of flow and your body can take it, it’s a great place to be,” he says.

“Some of my best moments, I think, were when I was 18, 19, 20 because you’re just in it and you just play. You’re not thinking about it. There’s no pressure. All you want to do is go out and just tear around. It doesn’t really matter who you’re playing, when you’re playing, you’re just going out there to basically whack things.”

Now 27, he has been around at the top level for almost a decade and over that time his game has evolved and matured. But he still whacks things. Hard and repeatedly. The physicality has been the foundation stone of his 68 England caps so far, including a World Cup final appearance. 

There have also been two Lions tours. His seismic performances in the first two Tests against Australia last summer went a long way to winning the series.

The reality is that everyone’s working as hard as they can, it’s just everything probably takes it a bit more out of you because you’re running an extra 10 metres or you’re making an extra five tackles. The game just feels harder.

It has been some career so far but a career is never a straight line. This season has been frustrating with a delayed start after wrist surgery and a current month-long hiatus caused by a torn calf sustained during the warm-up against Italy.

When he has played he has been part of two under-performing sides. Sale’s progress in Europe makes their domestic travails all the more puzzling while England fell off a cliff in the the Six Nations. 

“Sport and life doesn’t work out the whole time,” he says. “With Sale it’s that challenge of consistency, especially over that winter period, where we’ve struggled. That and injuries. With England it was the small things. In international rugby, the small things are accentuated because it’s such a high level of rugby. Everything has a little knock-on effect.

“Suddenly you look like you don’t have energy and people are questioning your work rate. The reality is that everyone’s working as hard as they can, it’s just everything probably takes it a bit more out of you because you’re running an extra 10 metres or you’re making an extra five tackles. The game just feels harder.

“The group felt tight. There was obviously an element of frustration that we were losing – and especially the back-to-back ones weren’t great – but it wasn’t like we were pointing fingers. 

“I think the France game showed how tight the group was. There were so many ways that could have gone but how everyone got around each other and the energy around attack, defence and set piece I thought it was a good reminder of where we could be. Sometimes you just need something like that to reset the system like a switch. That was how we have wanted to play.”

The game demands it, he believes. The sport has moved on. “You look at how rugby has changed just in the last 12 months. Teams have to progress. You can’t just be that physical team that you can kick and then just defend. You have to outscore teams now. Look at the breakdown. My brother and I were just talking about this. In the time we’ve been playing it has completely changed.

“As long as you bounced up really quickly, you used to be able to literally just stand up and get the ball. Now, you have to make a tackle, release and then go back on the ball. It makes a massive difference. The attacking game is obviously a highlight for referees and for World Rugby. Referees are rewarding the attack more than defence. You have to adapt. It’s kill or be killed.”

Curry will continue to move with the times when he returns. He cannot wait to be back. He has, in his estimation, missed too much rugby already this season.

I want to go out there as often as I can and play… I don’t think playing is going to shorten my career at all.

There are those who believe breaks like these will be good for his longevity given the way he plays the game and the hip condition which will require daily rehab for the rest of his career.

His director of rugby at Sale Alex Sanderson is one of them. He has suggested to Borthwick that he might rest Curry for the summer’s Nations Championship fixtures.

Curry, for all that he knows now there is a world beyond rugby outside his window, is having none of that.

“I want to go out there as often as I can and play,” he says. “I grew up dreaming of playing for Sale, so when I’m ready, I will be ready to play for Sale. I also wanted to play for England. So if I’m ready and allowed, I want to play for England.

“I don’t think playing is going to shorten my career at all.”