I am looking around me as we bind tight in our huddle, are they ready? Am I ready? I don’t feel it. The talking starts, all I can hear is the phrases I have heard a hundred times and more ‘Get stuck in from the whistle’, says one voice. It is just words to me now. It used to mean something. Now it’s just catchphrases they have heard someone else say, and spew them without feeling. They are driven by the same fear as me. I have learnt to internalise it, they still need to pretend it doesn’t exist.
We look around at each other and the speaking has stopped. All 15 men squeeze together. Not so much in a final bond of unity but a desperate need to cling onto someone. We know for the next eighty minutes we will need them. I don’t even like some of them, but here, for eighty minutes they are my flesh and blood, my brothers in arms.
It’s this moment where the brain plays tricks on me. We break from our huddle and I look across at my opposition for the day. Christ they are big, were they this big last year? The next ten minutes will decide if these men are giants, or just the same as us. If they shove us around they seem to get bigger as the minutes tick by. I start to feel like a mouse being padded around by a lazy cat just before it goes in for the kill. If we start to take control they get smaller and smaller and I take on the role of the cat, a nasty cat at that, when the mood takes me.
I am lined up and we are kicking off, this could go anywhere. He is a good lad John but an awful kicker. As he looks at the ref, who brings the whistle to his lips, for just one moment everything stops. This is the moment where the whole week I have had gets bottled; the rows with the boss, the rows with the girlfriend. Not just the week though. The image of the girl I loved with her new boyfriend; in fact every girl who ever broke my heart is stood on the side lines now, kissing the newest love of their lives. Every moment that has ever made me angry or bitter or filled me with resentment for thirty plus years is played through my head is no more than a second. It is all I need. It’s the coal in the boiler that will fuel the next eighty minutes. Some people just focus on their job and catching the ball cleanly. Me, I need to hate, I need to really hate the world to get through this game.
The whistle goes and jerks me from my brief look into the past. The sound of the heavy feet rushing forwards take over. Two sets of bodies hurtling towards each other. I don’t question it, I never have. If I did I would be stupid to carry on with it. Our young flanker Tom hurtles past me and hits their ball carrier low and hard driving him back. The ball goes lose and the whistle blows ‘knock on scrum red’ says the referee. These words that make my heart beat faster. This is why I am here. This is how this overweight frame is allowed to take part in the game, the scrum. The ref drags his foot on the floor to make the mark and I get to see who I am going to face. He is round, like me, solid legs, and huge thighs. That is never good; it means power that means hard work. We never take our eyes of each other, looking for that one sign of fear or weakness, something to exploit. I can’t see anything. I grab on tight to my hooker and offer a bind to my second row. I never take my eyes off my opposition. My heart is thumping so loudly, I am convinced he must hear it. I tell everyone how good it feels, how tight we are. This is self-reinforcement. I don’t feel good, I feel scared but I talk it up. They need it as much as me. We crouch, as the referee makes his calls; I look at where I am going to put my head. I take one final look at my opposition. I tighten every muscle in my body, one big squeeze on my hooker and I am ready.
